Mom warns parents after toddler nearly lost eyesight from playing with squirting bath toys

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PLAINFIELD, IL (WBBM) — A Plainfield mom has an urgent warning for parents after her toddler was not only hospitalized but could also have permanent eye damage from a bath toy you may have in your home.

Baylor loves cars and playing with his big brother and sister. He also has big blue eyes.

“I just remember praying, ‘Please don’t take his eyes. He has such pretty eyes,” said Baylor’s mom, Eden Strong.

“My 2-year-old son was just having a bath,” she said. “And what looked like a little bit of irritation from getting water in his eye from the tub toys, and then it turned into full blown cellulitis.”

She said over a period of 12 hours his eye went from pink to infected. Pictures from her now-viral facebook post show the fast progression.

“His eye was protruding from his face,” she said. “It was very obscured. He was running a raging fever.”

The toddler was given IV antibiotics and then a CAT scan.

“They explained that if it moved to his retina it could permanently cause blindness or if it moved to his brain it could be a lot worse,” Strong said.

The culprit was a squirting bath toy.

“I came to find out later that because the water is never fully expelled from those types of toys that they can just grow bacteria that you can’t stop,” she said.

Strong said she hopes manufacturers take a closer look at the toys they are producing.

“I’ve been shocked,” she said. “I have a completely full inbox with parents sending me pictures of their children who have gone through the same thing. It really does seem to be a design issue across all manufacturers and not just one specific one, so I really hope even those people will look at this and take that into consideration.”

Baylor has since made a full recovery and now plays with different toys in the bath.

“I would just throw all the squeezable ones away for sure,” Strong said. “I think those toys especially are cute. They’re fun. They’re cheap and they’re easy, but it’s not worth it.”

Strong said she did not want to name the manufacturer because she believes they are a good company with a bad product. She did send the toy to them so they could inspect it. She has not heard back.

There have been no recalls of squirting bath toys, only consumer reports of mold, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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