A mother-of-five has warned parents about being vigilant in placing a blanket or trolley protector in the baby seat of shopping trolleys, after her 10-month-old son contracted salmonella and meningitis.
Vivienne Wardrop, 35, took her infant son, Logan, to doing some grocery shopping at Helensvale, on the Gold Coast on September 13 and the next day her son was very ill.
Her son had really bad diarrhea, which went through his clothes and bedding. He also couldn’t keep down a bottle and was running a high temperature.
Ms Wardrop took her son to the doctor, but was told he was just fighting a virus. But early Thursday morning, Logan was found to be very dehydrated, so he was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital.
‘[The medical staff] were really good with him and started doing tests, ultrasounds, nasal swabs and urine testing – if it existed he had it,’ Ms Wardrop said.
Logan’s heart rate was up at 200 and 220 beats per minute and he was fighting a high temperature.
Doctors were able to eventually diagnose Logan with adenovirus, rotavirus, salmonella and meningitis.
He spent 10 days in hospital and eight of those were spent in the intensive care unit. The family were scared they were going to have to say goodbye to their little boy.
‘We were scared we were going to lose. It didn’t seem like [the doctors] were able to get him under control because they didn’t know what was wrong with him.
‘I’d never seen a child this sick, I have five children. He lost 10 per cent of body weight in three days – 800 grams – and went to being bloated because the water wouldn’t go into the cells – it was terrifying.
‘Even talking about it now makes me want to cry.
‘They said it was very unusual to be hit with all those viruses in one go.
‘The poor thing ended up with 10 heel prick tests and bruises on his arms from tests.
‘He was quite lethargic and his eyes were rolling in the back of his head and he was moaning.’
Logan is now at home, still recovering and on antibiotics. He takes a lot longer to drink his milk because he’s still in pain.
Sadly the salmonella and rotavirus stripped everything from his gut. His mum told the Daily Mail her son was pooing blood.
Ms Wardrop spoke with the doctors to work out how her son contracted the viruses and they believe it was from the shopping trolley.
‘We spoke [with doctors] about who had been around, if they had been sick, where we had been, what he had eaten. We hadn’t been out of in the house in a week,’ said Ms Wardrop
The mother of five was passionate about the cause of her son’s illness, she headed to Facebook to warn parents to wipe down or use a blanket to protect babies when in the shopping trolley.
‘Us as parents need to think about it a lot more,’ she said.
In her post on Facebook she wrote,
‘Just wanted to warn parents against using baby seats in trolley without wiping down or using a blanket,’ Ms Wardrop wrote on Sunday.
‘Didn’t even think about it just popped [Logan] in and did a quick shop. I hadn’t been anywhere with him in a week so doctors advised only place he could of gotten it.
‘He ended up catching adenovirus, rotavirus, salmonella poisoning and got meningitis because of the strain on his body.
‘Ended up with a central line as his veins were collapsing due to severe dehydration.
‘He was in hospital for a total of 10 days and will still take another week or 2 to fully recover.
‘So please be careful I never thought something like this could happen.’
The mum doesn’t blame the shopping centre for what happened to her son. She just wants parents to be more vigilant in protecting their babies when using shopping trolleys.
We hope Logan makes a full recovery.
