Remind me to give my daughter an extra hug today.
My free-spirited little munchkin, who has forsaken all things princess for stuffed lions, tigers and bears, could care less about her hair and nails. In fact, being bald would probably suit her just fine, given that it would allow her extra time in the morning to play with her dinosaur collection.
A girly-girl she is not.
However, there are many other young girls, who are quite the opposite. They love to play with their long, luxurious locks. They take pride in grooming their manes, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
Meanwhile, there are some girls (and boys), who grow out their hair for other reasons, including comfort. Many children love to twist, twirl and chew on their hair, and most parents of said children allow the habit, rationalizing that while it is rather gross, it’s relatively harmless.
Or so they think.
Those parents obviously have never heard of five-year-old Millie Wallis, the little girl whose hair eating habit nearly killed her.
According to reports, young Millie swallowed so much of her hair that it formed a rope-like object, which wrapped itself around her organs.
Doctors call the condition Rapunzel Syndrome, and it can be deadly if it is not diagnosed in time.
Millie’s mother, who admitted to watching her daughter nosh on her hair for years, told doctors that she had no idea the girl was “eating it in such large amounts.” This, despite the fact that Mrs. Wallis complained to physicians on previous visits that Millie had bald patches all over her head.
According to Millie’s mom, it wasn’t until last August that the girl started to complain of stomach pain. It reportedly took four visits to the pediatrician, rapid weight loss, and a night in hospital before Millie was diagnosed with Rapunzel Syndrome.
Earlier this year the girl from Liverpool was transferred to a larger hospital where an internal scan found an unidentified object in her stomach. Doctors were forced to operate, and when they opened up the little girl they found a huge hairball, with ropes of hair reaching down her digestive tract.
According to doctors, Millie’s operation, which was scheduled to take an hour, ended up taking six because the hair rope was so entangled around her organs.
“The hair was cutting through her bowel and had it perforated it, Millie would have died,” doctors noted. “It was painstaking work as we had to totally re-plumb her digestive system so the food could bypass the damaged area of her bowel.”
Thankfully Millie has recovered from her hair-raising ordeal, and she no longer snacks on her hair.
By the way, for those of you who were wondering, Rapunzel Syndrome is named after the Brothers Grimm tale of a girl imprisoned in a tower. She used her long hair to fashion a rope ladder so her handsome prince could save her.
Millie’s doctors say the syndrome is very rare, and that girl’s case is one of the worst they have ever seen.
Kind of make you want to schedule a haircut for your kid, doesn’t it?
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