‘Blood gushed from her mouth’

Every week a mother talks about the moment in motherhood when things went completely wrong.

Cindy (36) is a single mother of Domi (9) and Justine (4).

Stair gates

It’s been over three years now and I still kick myself when I think about it…

It was Wednesday morning, about 10 o’clock. I had just taken Domi to school and while I was in the kitchen getting rid of all the dishes from the morning rush hour and Justine was messing around on the play mat, the dryer beeped. With baby and all I walked upstairs: because we had stair gates, she could happily crawl over the top floor and I could fold the laundry in peace.

Hyperventilate

In short, a perfectly normal morning. Until after less than two minutes I heard a deafening bang, followed by some thumping and loud howling. I knew immediately: this is wrong. Sure enough, there was my little Justine, screaming at the bottom of the stairs. Blood gushed from her mouth.

From that moment on, everything passed me by in a blur. I started to hyperventilate, lifted Justine up and ran in a panic to my neighbor, who miraculously was home and raced to the emergency room with me. It wasn’t until we arrived at the hospital parking lot that Justine calmed down. But the bleeding had not stopped yet.

Read also: 9 ways to make your home safe for kids

Wake-up advice

Fortunately, the doctor reassured us after a few short checks: that Justine immediately started crying and didn’t have to vomit was a good sign. And the blood from her mouth? That came from her two bottom teeth that she had lost in the fall. I had to wake her up every 1-2 hours at night and keep a close eye on her for drowsiness – that’s it.

Once home I felt like the worst mother ever, because how could it be that I hadn’t closed the stair gate properly? But while I was still recovering from the dreary morning, Justine was happily crawling around again.

Nothing left

Even after waking up every hour during the night, it turned out that, apart from losing her lower teeth, she had suffered nothing from the fall. But forgot the stair gate in a hurry? Of course that never happened to me again.

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