Warning: This story contains disturbing images.
A Kentucky woman has warned other parents to keep their phone chargers out of reach after her baby burned her mouth on her charger.
The 19-month-old girl had put the end of the phone charger in her mouth while it was plugged in and received a nasty electrical burn.
In a Facebook post the mother, Courtney N. Davis, pleaded with caregivers, “Parents, Grandparents, babysitters etc please put your chargers up out of reach. My daughter was lucky the next kid may not be as lucky as her.”
She explained how the accident happened: “On Sept 28th my 19 month old stuck my phone charger in her mouth.
“We went to the Dr who confirmed that it was an electrical burn there was nothing they could put on it due to her being able to lick it.
“Any other day my charger wouldn’t have been plugged up in her reach but bc of a bunch of stuff going on that day I didn’t have time to move it. It took all of a few seconds for her to get burned. She had never tried to put it in her mouth and she had never messed with it. The one day it isn’t moved she stuck it in her mouth and got a severe burn.”
Her post has gone viral and been shared 300,000 times. She wrote that she felt compelled to share her story after learning from an online parents group she shared her story with first that many parents “don’t think twice” about the danger of a phone charger around children.
Davis also shared on Facebook that she was looking for a burns specialist and that while her daughter wasn’t behaving as if it was painful, her mouth was still looking “the same”.
“She still acts like it doesn’t hurt.”
It’s common for babies to put everything in their mouths because that’s the way they explore and learn about the world around them.
As a general rule of thumb a baby puts everything in its mouth up until the age of 12 months. By the time they’re two they mostly use their hands but it’s not until the age of three that children stop putting objects into their mouths altogether.
