Doctors baffled over ‘hole’ inside baby’s mouth

A Rotorua mother got the shock of a lifetime when she discovered what doctors at first called a “hole” in the roof of her daughter’s mouth.

But, the red, inflamed area turned out not to be a hole at all, despite four doctors all coming to the conclusion it was.

Sarah Cairns was changing eight-month-old Bella’s nappy when Bella flung her head back and opened her mouth, and Sarah caught a glimpse of a spot the size of a 20-cent coin.

It consumed the majority of the roof of Bella’s small mouth.

They had a virtual Zoom consultation with their GP, who thought could be a congenital hole.

Ms Cairns went on to speak to another three doctors, who all agreed it was probably a hole.

However, when an ear, nose and throat specialist took a photo of the hole, the flash reflected off the spot, revealing it was shiny.

“He put the camera away and said, ‘It might be a really easy fix’,” Ms Cairns told TWN.

And indeed it was.

It was a piece of plastic confetti stuck under skin, which the doctor pulled out swiftly using a little hook.

“I was very relieved. I was really quite worried about what it was [especially with] each doctor telling me that they didn't know,” Ms Cairns says.

A doctor who told her they had “never seen anything like this in their whole career” exacerbated her stress, she says.

“It made me a little more stressed than I needed to be."

Ms Cairns thinks the confetti might have been stuck in Bella’s mouth for up to nine weeks.

A piece of confetti left doctors thinking Bella had a hole in the roof of her mouth. Photo: supplied

Auckland paediatric ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Graeme Van Der Meer says diagnosing an injury inside of a toddler’s mouth is hard enough at the best of times, let alone over a Zoom consultation.

“I have a lot of empathy with the GPs and the doctors looking first because it is very challenging.”

He says the piece of confetti was small and red, like a hole, and Bella’s age meant she couldn’t express herself.

He says the first thing many doctors think of when there is an issue on the roof of the mouth is a hole.

“It probably was that this was the perfect size for it to cause a scratch and get inside there. It’s amazing how these things come together.”

A young child uses their mouth to explore the world, he says.

“Everything goes into their mouth. We do see a lot of things put in there because their tongue is the most sensitive part, and they use that to feel things.”

He says he sees similar cases about three or four times a year in his Mairangi Bay clinic.

He had a one case where a scab had grown over a foreign body, leading doctors to think it was cancer.

“We regularly see unusual things and this is one of them.”

Despite estimations that the confetti could’ve been stuck in Bella’s mouth for more than two months, the day after it was removed Bella was fine, says Ms Cairns.

Dr Van Der Meer says that’s because it’s not actually skin that grows over it, but mucus membranes designed to heal fast.