Be on the lookout for these bloodthirsty crawlers.
Summer isn’t all fun and games — it’s also the time of year when creepy crawlers, such as mosquitoes and ticks, come out to play.
As a result, one mom is urging parents to thoroughly check their babies after she found a tick in her little girl’s ear.
In a TikTok video with over 15 million views, a concerned mama named Des (@desriggs) showed a close-up of her baby girl’s ear with overlay text that read: “Just your friendly mom reminder to check every fold & crack on your babies bc my daughter has been fussy all week & I just found this inside her ear.”
Blink and you’ll miss the tick living inside the cartilage of the suffering baby’s ear.
The scary part is that in the event a tick bites a human — it can carry and transmit a variety of dangerous diseases, such as Lyme, the most well-known in the US, alpha-gal syndrome and Colorado tick fever.
Oftentimes, people don’t even feel the creepy crawler biting them — as the tick could live on a person for hours or days, feeding off their blood, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Ticks are most present in the warmer months — and they often live in tall grass and the woods.
Knowing all this, parents in the comment section of the video were thankful for the helpful advice.
“I do tick checks with my kids any time we come in from the woods and def could have missed that. Adding it to my list…”
“Omg! Never in a million years would I look for a tick in my kid’s EAR?! I hope she’s feeling better!”
“I mean you’re pointing your camera straight at it and I still had to come to the comments to see what was wrong. So definitely easily missed.”
“Urgent care worker and mom here… that’s one I have rarely seen and as a mom I wouldn’t think to check there either…”
While this mom lives in the south, New Yorkers still have to be careful of tick bites as Long Island has seen an uptick in the bloodsuckers this year.
Nassau and Suffolk counties specifically have seen the most ticks since the fall.
“I have friends working in the state and county parks, and the talk is, ‘Oh, my God, it’s so bad this year!’” Janine Bendicksen, director of wildlife rehabilitation at Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown told The Post.
Which ticks are attacking the Island?
Specifically, the Lone Star, American Dog, and black-legged tick — which can all transmit a variety of illnesses — have been on the rise.
