Meet Liam, A New Jersey Child With Lead Poisoning [VIDEO]

They're words that a parent never wants to hear, especially when there's little you can do about it.

The words are this: Your child has lead poisoning.

An Asbury Park Press report shows how a New Jersey family has coped with those words since January, when 8-month-old Liam Pantoja underwent routine blood work and was diagnosed.

And it didn't happen the way you'd think.

Indeed, lead can harm a person in more ways than just drinking water exposure, which is at the root of the crisis in Flint, Mich., where tens of thousands of residents were harmed.

The report talks about how Liam ate lead-based paint chips that had peeled off a windowsill in his grandparents’ Freehold apartment, where he lived with his parents.

“We were shocked and very, very upset,” his mom, Omara Avila told The Asbury Park Press. “We had no idea we were living in a home with a lead problem.”

Read more: These N.J. Towns Have Bigger Lead Poisoning Risk Than Flint, MI: Watchdogs

When they found out, it was the same week that Christie voted a bill that would have allocated $10 million toward removing lead from housing units that used the old paint.

Click here for The Asbury Park Press's interview with Liam's family, and here is a video on their struggles:

Earlier this year, it was disclosed that children in 11 municipalities and two counties in New Jersey have higher levels of lead in their blood than children in Flint, Mich., according to watchdog groups charged with monitoring the risk.

Those localities identified were Irvington, Trenton, Newark, Paterson, Plainfield, Jersey City, Elizabeth, Atlantic City, New Brunswick and Passaic. Cumberland and Salem counties were also on the list.

Flint, Mich. has become the focal point of a health crisis involving contaminated water, where thousands of children may be afflicted with lead poisoning.

In 2015, more than 3,000 new cases of children under 6 years old with elevated levels of toxic lead were reported in New Jersey. All told, about 225,000 young kids in New Jersey have been afflicted by lead since 2000, according to Elyse Pivnick, director of environmental health for Isles Inc.

“Water is not the only way children are lead poisoned,” said Pivnick. “In N.J., the primary source of lead poisoning is chipping and peeling lead paint applied many years ago in housing that is not well maintained.”