I was suspected of abusing my baby when she wouldn't stop crying – but the real truth was terrifying | The Sun
A MUM was suspected of abusing her baby when she wouldn't stop crying but the horror truth was terrifying.
Chloe Rhodes, 23, says her baby Autumn Stephenson wasn't crawling properly so took her to a Greater Manchester hospital.
The then-one-year-old was found to have a fractured leg and collarbone – but there was no explanation for her injuries.
And what came next was a devastating time in Chloe's life.
Because Autum's injuries were so bad, the hospital had to report them to social services and Chloe was no longer allowed to care for her children alone.
Chloe was baffled at the time, but the truth behind the tot's injuries were more haunting – Autumn has an extremely rare condition that meant her bones were soft and break easily.
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But, it took six months to get that diagnosis.
The mum-of-two recalled the horrific period of her life to the Manchester Evening News, saying: “While you’re trying to adjust to everything that’s going on around you, you now have to prove yourself to social services.
"You have to try and prove you’re innocent and fight against them while trying to soak up this new life.”
Chloe first noticed something was wrong with wee Autumn in January last year when she was dragging her feet and crying when her nappy was changed.
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Autumn, now aged two, remained in hospital for several days while medics carried out child protection tests.
Then, Chloe had to be supervised around Autumn and her older brother Oliver at all times, and was regularly visited by social services – but she did nothing wrong.
She said: “When people hear you have to be supervised with your kids, when they find out your kid has multiple fractures and don’t know anything, they start to get judgemental.
"People just automatically think you must have hurt your kids. It was a lot to take in when you’re already having a rubbish time."
It was July last year when the family finally got a breakthrough and Autumn was diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease.
Chloe said the news was too overwhelming for her to feel relief, adding: “I ended up really depressed.
“Not only did I have to accept my daughter had a condition for life, to see my daughter in pain, I was on edge all the time.
"Any little fall, any little bump, I was panicking."
People just automatically think you must have hurt your kids
Even before Autumn's fractures were discovered, there were signs something wasn't quite right with her health.
In 2020, when the tot was just four months old, Chloe noticed she wasn't growing properly.
The mum then took her to A&E after she vomited for nine days straight and while there doctors noticed the whites of her baby's eyes were blue.
She also had an arched palette in the roof of her mouth.
Both are indicators of brittle bone disease and Chloe believes safeguarding procedures could have been avoided if Autumn had been diagnosed earlier.
The mum said: “It’s just been crazy. Because of how little awareness there is, not many people know about the condition.
“Things got out of hand. Things could have been a whole lot different had the local hospital known about the condition and had awareness of it.
“We wouldn’t have had to wait months for them to admit it wasn’t an accidental fracture or having to be supervised with the kids for as long as we did because there was a lot of evidence pointing to a medical condition."
Things got out of hand
She added: "It’s not nice to be accused or even being suspected of abusing your kids.
"It’s weird to think I’m saying I’m lucky, I wasn’t but I’m luckier than some of the other situations other families have found themselves in.”
Autumn's list of injuries is longer than most adults.
She has fractured her: Leg three times, her clavicle, her collarbone, her finger twice and her toe and her family fear the number could be much greater.
While she is able to live life as a normal child, Chloe says she is not allowed on bouncy castle or trampolines and has to be watched at all times.
She said: “We just take every day as it comes. Most of the time she’s just really happy – singing and chatting away to everything.
"Even when she broke her leg this year, she was still making everyone laugh while she was in the hospital. She’s really resilient.”
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Chloe recently climbed Snowdon to fundraise for the Brittle Bones Society, a charity which has helped the family in recent years.
She was accompanied by family and friends and they have raised £770 on Justgiving to date.
What is osteogenesis imperfecta?
Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a group of genetic disorders that mainly affect the bones. The term "osteogenesis imperfecta" means imperfect bone formation. People with this condition have bones that break (fracture) easily, often from mild trauma or with no apparent cause. Multiple fractures are common, and in severe cases, can occur even before birth. Milder cases may involve only a few fractures over a person's lifetime.
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