Mom thought baby smelled like pancakes – it was actually a sign of a deadly disease
A mom did not realize that an unusual smell on her new baby had meant that he had a serious medical condition.
Megan Popps and Devaughn Debelak had welcomed their son Leo Debelak in February 2026, with Megan, 30, being discharged home after routine testing.
When they arrived home the young family began to settle in, and Megan noticed that he seemed to have an unusual smell, 'sickeningly sweet' like pancakes and maple syrup, not something you would expect to smell on an infant.
At first Megan recalled that she had been given pancake to eat in hospital and assumed that she had spilled some of the food into baby Leo's blankets.
Advert
"We had mentioned to each other a few times that Leo smelled very sweet," she said. "It's a very sugary, pancake smell, it's sickeningly sweet like maple syrup."
But a few days after they arrived home, the family were contacted and informed that a routine heel prick test had an anomaly on the results - Leo's amino acids had come back as 'inconclusive'.
"While we were still in the hospital, Leo had the heel prick test done and we were discharged home before the results came back," said Megan, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"We were told we needed to have the test redone as something had come back inconclusive. We went the next day to have it redone. I called up and found out it was Leo's amino acid profile that had come back inconclusive."
Megan said that she had researched Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD), a rare but manageable health condition affecting infants in which the body cannot break down protein properly, and which as its name suggests can cause urine, sweat, and earwax to smell like maple syrup.
She took Leo back to hospital, where they found that his amino acid levels were critical, and he was diagnosed with the condition, being kept in hospital for three weeks.
"When I looked up the disorder and saw how rare it was, it was hard for us to grasp our brains around the fact that was what was possibly happening," said Megan.
"Before going to the ER, we had packed some of his clothes and a soiled onesie to show the doctor that it smelled like pancakes. There was no urine smell at all."
And while Leo is well now, Megan said that he will need to closely monitor his diet for his entire life.
"He will be on a very strict vegan diet, he will have to avoid meat and dairy completely," she said. "He will have to count his protein intake for the rest of his life.
"He is at risk for life of having another metabolic crisis. If he ingested too much protein, periods of fasting, sickness or extreme stress can also lead to a metabolic crisis."
Megan said that she believes the sign of the distinctive odor helped to save her son's life, fearing he 'would've slipped into a coma within days or even lost his life' if they hadn't acted.
"I think that pancake, maple syrup smell absolutely helped save his life," she said. "I think if we didn't have something concrete like the smell, we'd have been able to talk ourselves out of everything that was going on."
Kit Roberts