Eight week-old baby left with horrific chemical burns after ‘bungled’ medical procedure

AN eight-week-old baby was left with horrific chemical burns after his mum claims a doctor bungled a procedure to get rid of his umbilical cord.

Tiny Cayson Yale had a condition called umbilical granuloma – an overgrowth of tissue which occurs during the healing of the belly button – but, to the shock of is family, the youngster ended up in hospital when a routine procedure to remove it went wrong.

Mum Abbey Watson, 21, mentioned the growth on her son’s tummny to her health visitor, who said it might go on its own – but five weeks later it was still there.

So, when she took him for his six-week postnatal check-up at her at her GP surgery, she claims the doctor treated him with a silver nitrate pen to burn away the excess skin.

Soon after, Abbey says the tot became increasingly distressed as his belly button started to get redder – and she rushed him to hospital, where she claims she was told he had chemical burns.

“When Cayson was newborn my health visitor came round, and said he had umbilical granuloma – a small ball of flesh left from where the umbilical cord was attached.
She said it might go on its own, and I left it for around five weeks, washing it in salt water – but nothing was happening,” she said.

“When I took him to the doctors for our six-week postnatal check, I explained to the doctor what the health visitor had said.

“Straight away, she got on the phone and asked for a silver nitrate pen. It was a thick pen with a felt tip end, and she rubbed it all over his belly button for a good minute at least.

“I’m a first-time mum and thought nothing of it – I just thought that was the normal thing to do.”

But after Abbey left the doctors, she said Cayson’s belly button started to become red and sore.

“About two hours later Cayson’s belly was really sore and gunky. I thought maybe that was the reaction it was supposed to have. But an hour later it went a grey ash colour and was really inflamed, and then it started getting worse hour by hour.”

Abbey rang Shropdoc, a local out-of-hours urgent medical service, who saw Cayson and told her to go to the hospital.

She took Cayson to the Princess Royal Hospital, in Telford, where she was initially told her baby had third degree burns, before he was later diagnosed with chemical burns.

Abbey said: “Straight away they said it was bad. They sent me to a paediatrician at the Princess Royal and a doctor there told me it was third degree burns.

“I was shocked and absolutely disgusted – you put your trust in the doctors to do the right thing, you don’t expect your baby to come out of a simple procedure with burns.

“I was later told that the correct way to use silver nitrate is by putting Vaseline over the infected area first so it doesn’t touch the skin, and by using a tiny drop on the end of a cotton bud to dab it on – not by just rubbing it straight on.”



- TheSun