Baby contracts life-threatening salmonella from shopping trolley

Little Logan spent eight days in ICU where doctors advised his mother that a shopping trolley was the only place he could have contracted salmonella. Photo / Facebook

An Australian mother-of-five is urging parents to be more cautious about germs at the supermarket after her baby contracted salmonella from a shopping trolley.

According to essentialbaby.com, Gold Coast resident Vivienne Wardrop stopped at a shopping centre for a "quick shop" with her 10-month-old son Logan, who she strapped into a trolley.

Just 24 hours later Logan was vomiting, had diarrhoea and a fever. The following morning his mother took him to hospital where he spent the next eight days in intensive care.

In just three days, Logan lost 10 per cent of his body weight. Photo / Facebook

Taking to Facebook, Wardrop explained: "[He] ended up with a central line as his veins were collapsing due to severe dehydration. He was in hospital for a total of 10 days and will still take another week or two to fully recover."

She told the Daily Mail the experience was "terrifying", saying she feared "we were going to lose him. It didn't seem like [the doctors] were able to get him under control because they didn't know what was wrong with him."

Wardrop says she had never seen a child so sick, "and I have five children".

In just three days, Logan lost 10 per cent of his body weight and became bloated because water couldn't enter his body's cells.

He was diagnosed with adenovirus, rotavirus, salmonella poisoning and, due to the strain on his body, contracted meningitis.

While no formal testing has been conducted to establish Wardrop's claims that the shopping trolley was the source of his illness, the mother believes a process of elimination makes it the likely culprit.

"I hadn't been anywhere with him in a week so doctors advised [it was the] only place he could of gotten it," she wrote on Facebook.

The post includes grim images of her sick son and has been shared more than 12,000 times.