VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A local mother's fight for product safety gained significant traction when she got published by a syndicated medical association.
News 3 is checking back in with Ashley Haugen, a mother whose daughter, Kipley, was seriously hurt by water beads.
“She still has some challenges from the exposure and from the injury, but she is making incredible forward progress,” Haugen said.
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When Kipley was about a year old, her mom Ashley says she got really sick. She was vomiting, lethargic, losing weight, experiencing insomnia, and developing facial dermatitis.
Doctors could not figure out what was wrong, so she underwent an exploratory laparotomy. They concluded that Kipley ingested water beads that her older sister was playing with.
Water beads are colorful gel-like beads that are marketed for home decoration, plant hydration, and sensory play for kids. However, there are major safety concerns when it comes to children interacting with the product.
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According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, when exposed to water, the beads can expand to 100x their size.
From the outside, Ashley says water beads look harmless. They are small, colorful, and squishy, but when ingested, they can cause intestinal blockages, neurological problems, and death.
Kipley survived, but the experience led the family to advocacy work, starting the nonprofit, That Water Bead Lady.
Over the years, she connected with other families whose children were injured by water beads. They work with legislators to push for more regulations. For the past two years, Ashley has been working with physicians to share the information she gathers with the medical community.
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“We decided that it would be a good idea to write a case study on what happened to [Kipley],” she said. “I had brought a lot of the research and the information from my advocacy work already, and they brought their clinical expertise and their knowledge of the medical literature."
In January, Kipley's case was published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, making Ashley one of the first parent advocates to co-author a case report in the journal.
“We could put it all together to make a case study that other physicians could learn from and could gain knowledge to better help other children who may unfortunately be in Kipley's situation,” she said.
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Beyond that, That Water Bead Lady is creating kits for other families whose kids have been hurt by toys or consumer products.
“It will help [parents] with advocating while their child is in the hospital and beyond. It will help them with knowing how to file a report, how to ask their physician to file a report to saferproducts.gov on their behalf. It will [also] help them understand that there are resources in their communities and across the country that they can take advantage of after their child has been injured,” she said.
It is still in the early phases, but Ashley says knowledge is everything when your kid's health is on the line.
“You deserve to have the opportunity to be heard. Your story deserves to be heard,” she said.
