Jennifer Burnham: US influencer reveals her four-year-old son Baxter’s heartbreaking cause of death

Lifestyle influencer Jennifer Burnham has revealed her son’s tragic cause of death, days after announcing the four-year-old’s untimely passing.

Ms Burnham, who lives in California, announced this week that her eldest son Baxter had died on October 5 and paid tribute to the “angelic” boy who she shared with husband Bryce.

The couple also share one-year-old son Barron.

“We miss you too much but we know you are still with us everyday, watching over mommy, daddy and your baby brother Barron from heaven,” Ms Burnham said.

“We love you always and forever.”

Ms Burnham did not reveal Baxter’s cause of death in her original post, but took to social media on Thursday local time to explain what happened to her little boy.

“I just wanted to thank every single person that has sent me a message of kindness and prayers towards our family about our son the last few days,” Ms Burnham began.

“I did want to come on here and talk about what happened to our son? Because I know there’s a lot of questions, and I didn’t answer that in my original post, because . . . this last week and a half has just been such a blur.”

Ms Burnham expalined that Baxter was diagnosed with a brain tumour in April this year, after the four-year-old’s left eye began crossing uncontrollably.

Despite an initial diagnosis of strabismus, an MRI revealed Baxter had diffuse midline glioma, which his mother said was “shocking” for the family given the four-year-old “couldn’t have been happier or healthier”.

“(It) is essentially the worst type of brain tumour that you can have, unfortunately, because it’s in the brainstem, and that’s inoperable, meaning it’s incurable,” Ms Burnham said.

“The unfortunate part about the brainstem is it controls all of your neurological functions, so it literally physically cannot be operated on.”

Little Baxter underwent surgery to remove some of the tumour, as well as proton radiation.

Ms Burnham said she and her husband looked for “anything and everything” to treat their son, including several trips to Europe for treatment and red light therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen baths.

“We talked to every doctor in the country,” she said.

“I think that’s the hardest part because it’s so difficult to watch your child going through something like this, and and you’re literally helpless.

“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, and we’ve been living in this nightmare for six months.”

Ms Burnham said she is “so proud” of how Baxter dealt with his illness, saying she wanted to spread awareness and answer questions for families going through a similar ordeal.

“He was so strong and such a fighter, and literally fought until the very last day . . . He had a smile on his face and just was the happiest guy,” she said.

“I know that in my heart that he is in a much better place right now because no child should be suffering like that . . . that gives me comfort as a mom, just knowing that he’s no longer in pain.

“I just I wanted to talk about this because if anyone else is going through something similar, if I can help anyone in any way (with) anything that we tried or did, or contacts I have, anything at all, I want to be that person that can help another family, because no person should go through this alone.”