By ERICA TEMPESTA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
- Christel Holland took to TikTok last week to share footage of her daughter with a purple mouth as a baby followed by a similar clip of her son
- The mom-of-two from San Diego claims in the video that both of her children ‘ate a purple Sharpie’ when they were babies and it stained their mouths
- Christel explained in the comments that their mouths were actually purple because of the medicine they were taking to treat their oral thrush
- The video has been viewed more than 6.6 million times, and despite her explanation, many people criticized her parenting
A mother horrified TikTok users when she shared a video of her babies with purple-stained mouths and joked that they both ate permanent markers — but it was actually from their medicine.
Christel Holland, a mom-of-two from San Diego, took to TikTok last week to share footage of her three-year-old daughter with a purple mouth as a baby followed by a similar clip of her one-year-old son.
‘Um, throwback to when my daughter ate a purple Sharpie when she was a little baby, and it stained her mouth for like a week…Oh, and then my son did it too,’ she says in the video, which has been viewed more than 6.6 million times.
In the caption, she noted that ‘only moms know what this actually is,’ but not all of them did, and some were quick to criticize Christel’s parenting.
‘But how does an INFANT even get ahold of a Sharpie?’ one person asked, while another added: ‘Uhm so how about GO TO THE ER not take a video!!!!’
Christel also explained herself in the comments, writing: ‘Before anybody freaks out they both got thrush when they were babies and the purple is actually a medication to get rid of it!!’
Oral thrush is an infection typically caused by a yeast known as Candida albicans. While anyone can get thrush, it happens most often to babies and toddlers, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems, according to WebMD.
The mom told BuzzFeed News that she took her daughter to the doctor a couple of years ago because her mouth was coated in a thick, white substance and was told it was thrush.
Her daughter was given gentian violet, an antiseptic dye used to treat fungal infections of the skin. It also can turn the skin purple.
‘I didn’t know much about thrush, since I was a new mom, but with my son, I noticed almost instantly that it was thrush and knew I needed to get the violet medicine as soon as possible because thrush can be a pretty big pain to get rid of,’ Christel explained to the outlet.
The criticism she received was so overwhelming that she shared multiple videos explaining the real reason why her children’s mouths were purple in the clip, revealing that one TikTok user called her a ‘bad parent.’
‘I don’t neglect my kids,’ she told her 303,100 followers. ‘That is actually not a Sharpie. That is medicine for something called thrush, which is a yeast infection. Something about that purple stuff makes the thrush go away.’
In another video, she defended her decision to joke about her children eating Sharpie markers.
‘I’m a great mom. Everybody who knows me knows that I’m a good mom,’ she says, adding: ‘TikTok is just one big joke. People make dark jokes all of the time, and it’s funny. If you don’t like dark humor, move on.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8312165/Video-babies-PURPLE-mouths-goes-viral-TikTok.html