I dropped my baby….!!!!

[Beemommy]

Feeling completely awful and can’t take it out of my head… keep googling all kind of horrible staff… please can someone put my mind at ease…
basically I fell asleep with the baby over my tummy…she is 7 weeks old. Next thing I know she is on the floor crying… I picked her up immediately and soothed her and within few seconds she stopped crying. I laid her down and examined all her body and didn’t find any single bruise or scratch. She was smiling and cooing, I fed her and she went back to sleep.

It has been more than 48 hours and she has been ok, a bit cranky but nothing more than average colicky baby…

But now I keep thinking what if… there is some inside injury I couldn’t see… what if it will show up weeks later… what if , what if..

It seemed not necessary to take her to ER that night as she was completely fine but now after spending hours on Google I am terrified…

A paediatric nurse is the most qualified person on this thread to give advice - please listen to her.

@username8888 See, if you HAD read my posts properly, you would also have seen that my friend's 3 month old sustained a fractured skull rolling off a low bench onto a tiled floor. And you have no idea what my 'experience' is

@username8888 you are the only one making sense here and the only one who understands me.

For those who already labelled me as a bad and heartless mother - I did freak out and panic and felt horrible. Then I have collected myself and observed my baby and came to the conclusion that waking up my kids and dragging them driving one hour to the ER is not necessary at that very moment and that I will see how she is doing in the morning. I kept observing her and as the time was passing - my worries were drifting away. But then Mr Google came to my help and made paranoid that’s when I came here and opened this thread.

And yes I agree -moms do that all the time. We are overtired and overwhelmed and therefore accidents may happen. It could happen to anyone. I did not purposely put my baby in the unsafe situation. I have breastfed her and we both fell asleep. I did not plan this nor expect this to happen.

@Beemommy

You're quite incredible.

You've ignored the posters (including a paeds nurse) who've advised getting (or that you should have got) medical advice.

You've chosen one poster that validates your action.

I'm really glad your baby is ok. However, it was dangerous, and falling asleep feeding your baby, in that scenario, is incredibly dangerous. It doesn't sound like you've reflected on that at all.

@EarringsandLipstick
I agree it was dangerous and I agree that I have to never let this happen again. However as I said it was an accident and I was just overtired and passed out.

The main idea here is that the baby is fine and since the time has already passed there is no point taking her to emergency since there is no emergency anymore. That’s what @username8888 was trying to say. Even the paediatric nurse said the same - the baby is fine.
However what should have done - that’s a different story. In that particular time and situation I decided not to take her. Probably if the time or baby’s condition was different I would have made a different decision.

But you keep saying moms do that all the time - they don't. A small baby falling onto a hard surface should have been checked.

I know you can't go back 3 days now; and that was the point made by the paeds nurse.

But I think trying to normalise it as 'it happens all the time' isn't right. I know how exhausting it is, but you need a better system.

Actually I didn’t say the baby is fine, I said the likelihood is that is the case but you should still have them checked. We have had babies that have suffered fractured skulls but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. By all means, use your own judgement, but there’s little point in posting on here if you’re so determined that your own observation is suffice.

Agree with others on the thread, it wouldn't do any harm to schedule a doctor's appointment to explain what happened and you would like your baby checked over. Especially as it was a hard surface which was not originally made clear in your first OP.

Sorry it’s pretty neglectful to not seek medical attention when an almost newborn smacks their head on a hard floor. You wanted reassurance from random people of mumsnet and not the actual medical experts who would have assessed your child properly. No, it’s not normal for babies that age to fall on their heads, usually it’s by the time they’re rolling over that it happens. So I’m not sure why people seem to be minimising it so much and throwing in their anecdotes of how their baby was completely fine

@Emmacb82
so are you saying baby can have a fractured skull with no visible mark/bruise/redness/bump on the outside at the time of the fall? And with no other symptoms?

@magma32
noone said she smacked her head on the floor.. I said she fell and that I found her on her tummy. The fact that she fell head first was later added by one of the drama loving ladies on this thread…

@magma32
and they are not anecdotes, they are real stories

Often there are signs but like I say, I have known cases of fractures where the baby is well and there are no signs. I’m not saying this is the case with your baby, like I said, the likelihood is that they are fine. But after any head injury at this age, onto a hard floor, I would strongly advise that you get baby checked. Hopefully all is fine, but you were concerned enough to Google, concerned enough to make a thread on here, so why the hesitation to get an actual real life medical review?! For your own reassurance and to make sure baby is fine, just get them seen.

added by one of the drama loving ladies on this thread…

That's horrible of you.

You admitted you'd no idea what way she fell.

You can't expect anyone here to be definitive. That's why appropriate assessment was needed at the time; instead of 'it happens to all moms'

I'm a bit perplexed by this thread.

OP, I was very anxious about my PFB but not about subsequent DC. One in particular seemed to seek out accidents (still does, and she's now an adult), and she mostly bounced.

You now seem to be reassured that everything is fine, based on your own observations. I'd have agreed entirely until you mentioned the tiled floor. That would have sent me off on a trip to whatever your equivalent of A&E is, even though I'd have been sure everything was fine.

My children just about pre-date Google, btw, so that would not have been my first port of call. I do remember several instances of consulting my neighbour (a retired GP) when I wasn't quite sure whether I should pack all the children into the car and go to A&E or not. I think I'd have gone for packing them all into the car if a baby had landed on a tiled floor and if I hadn't had a handy GP neighbour.

does anyone know if it is possible to have a brain injury without even a bump on the head??


The problem is that I don’t even remember which position she was on the floor… I think she was on her tummy but everything was so blurry as I was in shock and still half asleep when I picked her up..

Did you you do any kind of exam or brain scan to see if it wasn’t internally damaged?

I read the brain can bleed from inside and it won’t show until few days or even weeks after… is it true??

OP I’m just going by these first few posts of yours. If you’re convinced she didn’t smack her head then why stress and post on here? Very odd.

I would take the baby to the doctors tomorrow to be checked.

It's odd because the OP's tone seems to have entirely changed since the initial post. She's gone from being worried to somehow entirely certain all is fine based on one poster who has replied with what she clearly wants to hear.

I think a lot of these people are massively overreacting. The mother monitored the baby, there was no bump or dent or cut, chances are a Dr would have said to do the same and monior. Any change in pupil or behaviour then I'm sure she would have rung an ambulance immediately. But I think it's been long enough hasn't it with nothing wrong with baby so all is now fine I'm assuming?
If it was me, and it has been me, I would have done the same and monitored very closely. These things happen, we panic, it's normal.

I assume you're referring to me here, which is extremely unkind of you considering I said no such thing.
However, considering the size of a newborn's head compared to their body, have a go at imagining them rolling off your body,off the bed, and onto a tiled floor WITHOUT hitting their head. Don't be so stupid.

And to add, OP knows she shouldn't have fallen asleep with a baby on her and I'm sure feels guilty for it after all this. Mistakes happen, we learn from them, in this case it was a lucky outcome but nonetheless a lesson. OP knows this so there's no need to haul her over the coals. I'm sure there's many a preachy mum on here who's fallen asleep with their baby before but won't admit it lest it knocks them from preachy pulpit

I'm sure there's many a preachy mum on here who's fallen asleep with their baby before but won't admit it lest it knocks them from preachy pulpit

What a crappy comment. What 'preachy mums' are you referring to?

@EarringsandLipstick not just specifically on this thread but Mumsnet in general. I've been this forum long enough to see it first hand

It's a really sneery comment, regardless. Why not focus on the thread at hand and call out where you see this, rather than saying it vaguely applies to unidentified parts of MN as a generality?