A TODDLER tragically died “out of the blue” just hours after a doctor dismissed his symptoms as a stomach bug.
Hudson Hewitt woke up on the morning of January 18 at around 4.30am and would not stop crying.
Mum Shannon and dad Tyler, both 26, simply put it down to a bug at first.
But the two-year-old tot continued to point at his stomach and was sick soon after at the family home in Ferryhill, Durham.
Shannon then called 111 when he didn’t improve, and says a doctor diagnosed the tot over the phone with gastroenteritis, saying to keep him hydrated and ring back if he didn’t get better.
However, Hudson’s condition worsened and he became unresponsive after going to urgent care a day later.
He was blue-lit to Darlington Memorial where he died despite doctors’ efforts.
Shannon, 26, told the Echo: “It was all such a shock, totally out of the blue.
“We never felt like a family until we had Hudson. He made us us.
“He was full of character, so smiley. He loved farm animals, dinosaurs. He was a typical little boy.”
A pathologist found Hudson died due to a twisted bowel due to a birth defect, which they told Shannon most people born with can survive without issue.
She believes it may have been spotted if he’d had an appointment straight away.
Every day habits harming your gut
Several factors can negatively influence gut health, either by altering its function or wiping out the beneficial bacteria (allowing bad bacteria to thrive). Here are some common ones:
A poor diet
High sugar and high-fat diets can lead to an imbalance in gut bacteria. This typically means processed foods, like cakes, biscuits, fried foods and more. Artificial sweeteners may also disrupt gut flora, and alcohol – particularly cocktails and mixers with high sugar – aren’t beneficial either.
Lack of fibre
Dietary fiber is essential for healthy gut bacteria and therefore, a diet low in fiber can negatively impact gut health. Fibre is in foods such as wholmeal bread, oats, jacket potato, fruits and vegetables.
Antibiotics
We all need to take antibiotics now and again, sometimes they are necessary. But antibiotics can kill beneficial gut bacteria along with harmful ones, leading to imbalances in the gut. Other medications like NSAIDs and proton pump inhibitors can also affect gut health. Make sure to implement gut health habits – or take a probiotic – during antibiotic use.
Stress
Stress affects us all but some are better than dealing with it than others. Stress can alter the gut microbiome and increase gut permeability, leading to a “leaky gut”. Symptoms include diarrhoea, pain and gas.
And the devastated mum is now calling for all under-fives to get an in-person check when parents ring 111 instead of being given a diagnosis over the phone.
She added: “I think if they had seen him on the Saturday and they did his observations something could have shown up.
“If an organ was shutting down maybe his blood pressure or something would have flagged there was something wrong.
“With an adult we can say what the problem is, but a child can’t do that. He was the age where he’d say ‘yes’ to everything.
“As a parent you worry about your kids anyway, but you play a guessing game of if it’s serious or not.”
A petition, set up by Shannon, is due to go live online this week calling for the change.
Shannon added: “We haven’t been home. I can’t bring myself to – everything is the way we left it, all his toys are still in the living room.
“I’ve been to pick up letters but I haven’t gone through the front door.
“It doesn’t feel right going in there without him. Every time I go in the house I’m just going to see him in there.”
A family were left heartbroken after Hudson Hewitt’s death[/caption]
