'Why is my daughter crying blood?'

Watching your child literary cry blood every other night would break any parent’s heart, especially when there’s nothing you can do about it.

Hazura Kamal Santhirasehar, 24, has been enduring her two-month-old daughter’s suffering ever since the child was five days old.

The mother-of-five said she and her husband, Abu Kassim Mahmuddin, 39, was shocked when their youngest, Maryam Batrisya, cried blood for the first time.

Hazura said initially, only Maryam Batrisya’s left eye was affected but it soon spread to her right eye.

“She had been suffering from red and bloody eyes since she was five days old. At first it was just the left eye, then it healed after about a week. Then her right eye started tearing blood and it has been this way ever since,” she said.

She said she was at her wit’s end in trying to help her daughter; Maryam Batrisya’s condition remains the same despite receiving hospital treatment numerous times.

“We’ve been discharged from the Malacca Hospital twice. Each time, her eyes will heal for a while before it becomes red again.

“Each time I clean my daughter’s eyes, I’d use at least four cotton buds,” Hazura said.

Meanwhile, according to an eye specialist of the hospital’s Ophtalmology Department, Dr Raja Norliza Raja Omar, Maryam Batrisya suffered from a bacterial infection of the cornea.

She said the bloody tears was the body’s reaction of excreting waste from the eyes.

“Maryam is suffering from ‘pseudomembranous conjunctivitis’ where the layer that covers the white part of the eye is infected. The bleeding is a normal thing,” Dr Raja Norliza said.

However, she said although the ailment was not deemed as serious, Maryam Batrisya could risk losing her eyesight if the child did not receive follow-up treatments and intensive care.