A Sheffield couple who thought their son had nothing more than a cold have described the moment they learned a common infection had killed him in his sleep
A Sheffield couple who thought their 16-month-old baby had nothing more than a cold have described the moment they learned a strep A infection killed him in his sleep.
Anya Sousa and Hugo Sousa, who describe their son Leo as an easy and happy baby, had first noticed a rash on their newborn in August 2022.
Despite needing antibiotics and suffering eczema as a result of the infection, the ordeal had not seemed to trouble him.
In December 2023, the family returned from a Christmas trip to Portugal feeling run down, with cold-like symptoms across the household.
On New Year’s Eve, Anya noticed Leo seemed unusually quiet, and although he played normally with his father before he went to work, he fell visibly ill after dinner, which Anya put down to his blocked nose.
Anya dropped Leo and his sister Sienna, now six, at her mother Diane’s for the night, mentioning the family’s colds but nothing more concerning.
The next morning, Sienna told her grandmother she could not wake her brother. Diane found Leo unresponsive and immediately called an ambulance, attempting CPR until paramedics arrived.
Anya and Hugo reached the scene within ten minutes to find their road cordoned off and Leo already in the ambulance.
Both parents described the shock of that morning as their “worst nightmare”, as Hugo recalled not knowing what to do and freezing.
While an initial post-mortem found no clear cause, fuller examinations found traces of Streptococcus in Hugo’s blood.
A pathologist told Anya given the infection, Leo “should have been a lot more ill” than he appeared.
Strep A infections are usually mild and cause flu-like symptoms or a sore throat, but can rarely become life-threatening, according to the NHS.
