A North Texas mother is warning other parents to take precautions during fall festivities after she says her 4-month-old daughter contracted salmonella, likely from exposure to a pumpkin.
Briana Robertson said her daughter, Kehlani, had been around pumpkins during seasonal activities, including a daycare activity involving pumpkin seeds and pulp.
Robertson said that about two to three weeks later, Kehlani participated in another pumpkin activity at daycare.
“The teachers put the pumpkin seeds and the pumpkin guts in a Ziploc bag,” Robertson said, explaining that just days later her daughter developed a mysterious illness.
“She was lethargic, turning purple; she wasn’t eating, wasn’t drinking,” she said.
Robertson said Kehlani became so dehydrated that staff at an Athens emergency room made 15 attempts to place an IV.
After several tests, Robertson said she was shocked to learn her daughter had a salmonella infection that was likely linked to a pumpkin.
“When you think about non-typhoidal Salmonella, you think about the typical produce,” Robertson said, “pumpkin, you don’t read that much about.”
Children’s Health primary care provider Dr. Zachary Stone said raw produce always carries some risk. A recent salmonella outbreak in France was also linked to pumpkin seeds.
“Whenever you develop salmonella from a produce like a pumpkin, it is the cutting of that rind where the salmonella is, and then bringing the salmonella into the pulp,” Stone explained, saying, “At that point, the Salmonella is exposed to the pulp, and then if an infant or a child puts that pulp into their mouth or any type of toy gets around there that is exposed to it and that toy goes to the mouth, that’s where the exposure risk comes from.”
Stone encouraged parents to wash pumpkins with hot water and a produce brush, and to be diligent about hand-washing and other hygiene.
A year later, Robertson said her family is rethinking its Halloween activities and sharing Kehlani’s story in hopes of helping other parents.
“Even if it changes one person’s mind, that’s like one baby saved from possibly going through the same thing my daughter went through.”
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.
