A North Carolina mom is warning parents to be extra careful when taking their kids to get their ears pierced after what happened to her own daughter.
When Michelle Moore first noticed that the front of her 3-1/2-year-old daughter’s Hello Kitty earring had fallen off, she didn’t think much of it.
Seeing that only the post and the earring’s back were left behind, Moore quickly began trying to safely pull them out—but they wouldn’t budge.
“I watched it for a few days hoping that it would work itself back out,” Moore explained to SheKnows, but she ultimately ended up making an appointment with her pediatrician.
Immediately, the family was referred to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, who determined that outpatient surgery was the only way to safely remove the stuck earring.
To make matters worse, Moore went to remove the second Hello Kitty earring from her daughter’s ear just before the surgery and the face of that one fell off, too.
“Luckily, this one was not embedded in her ear yet, and the doctor was able to remove it while she was under anesthesia without having to cut the earlobe,” she said. “He did, however, have to make an incision on the ear with the embedded earring in order to remove it.”
Though the surgery went well and her toddler has already recovered, Moore says it was heartbreaking to watch her little girl undergo anesthesia and surgery—all because of her earrings.
She’s now warning other parents to be careful about the quality of the earrings they buy for their children.
Moore explained to SheKnows that the Hello Kitty earrings had been a gift from her mother-in-law, who had actually made it a point to buy a high-quality pair.
Nevertheless, Moore suggests staying on the safe side for a while and buying only “starter earrings,” which are the ones someone uses right after they get their ears pierced.
