A two-month-old baby in China almost had his left thumb amputated after a hair became tightly wrapped around it.

A single strand of hair from his mother’s head became so tightly intertwined around his digit that it ballooned to more than double its size.

Fortunately, doctor’s realised it was a hair tourniquet and removed it in an operation last Friday without amputation, shares Daily Mail.

It had wrapped around the child’s thumb so much so that it had got lodged under the skin.

This led to extremely rare clinical phenomenon known as ‘toe tourniquet syndrome’.

The mum told a reporter that the baby had been crying at home for four, five days but did not notice such serious accident.

The mother said: ‘Perhaps it happened when I was holding him up close, I didn’t notice at all and I was not checking thoroughly.’

Recommended mums keep their hair short or tie it up

Dr Hu reminded young mothers to keep their hair short or tie up their long hair to avoid such incident happening.

Most children who suffer from toe tourniquet syndrome are four days to 19 months old and usually present to doctors inconsolably crying and in obvious distress.

Generally such a young age group is at risk is down to the postpartum hair loss which 90 percent of mothers experience.

Dad shared his story to warn others

Scott and Jessica Walker from Kansas have shared their story when their 19-week-old daughter, Molly, started screaming at lunch.

They were shocked to discover the source of the screaming: a hair tourniquet around her toe.

“The hair tourniquet syndrome wasn’t anything I ever heard about,” Scott told TODAY.com. “When we found it was pretty stressful because any time your kid is hurt it’s stressful; you feel helpless. I’m lucky enough to have a wife who is an awesome nurse who was able to remove the hair in minutes.”

“It was a pretty scary situation,” he said. “It ended very well, but it was scary enough where I wouldn’t want anyone else to deal with something like that, so I wrote about it.”

They shared their story on Facebook in hopes of enlightening friends and family who were also new parents. His post has since been shared more than 35,000 times.

Last year we shared a similar story from an Australian mum who never would have expected to be in the situation that nearly saw her little girl lose her toes. Read her story here.

Tizzie Hall also had a frightening experience when a hair nearly cost her young baby his toe.

TOE TOURNIQUET SYNDROME

• Is a medical condition where a hair or thread becomes tightly tied to a finger, toe or other appendage cutting off circulation and potentially causing amputation.
• The problem usually affects young babies when hair ends up in their socks and is most common when mothers are shedding hair post-pregnancy.
• Identified with magnification and cut away usually with small scissors, the rare condition is missed by some doctors

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