Is a white tongue always thrush?

[Jeannabna]

DD is 3 weeks old, and has had the white coating on her tongue pretty much since birth, but my nipples aren't sore at all. The pediatrician didn't mention it, and I didn't want to ask because I don't want to give her any meds if I don't have to. Am I wrong to assume its ok if I am not sore?

[Plaid Leopard]

All 4 of my babies had a white tongue for several weeks as newborns, and none of them had thrush.

[angelachristin]

my DD had a thin white coating on her tongue for at least the 1st 3 months. my midwife kept telling me it was thrush but i knew it wasn't and it wasn't. it just went away on its own after a while

[taren]

Milk Mouth!

d

Edited by taren - 9/1/11 at 4:04pm

[octobermom]

its normal and there sosposed to have it..
Its milk if you want it can be wipes off but its normal and fine..

Deanna

[1babysmom]

Milk tongue... we've had numerous battles with thrush and I NEVER notice it on their tongues, just on their cheeks (if at all). But they almost always have the white milk tongue.

[ClaudiaTh]

My daughter had a "milk tongue" as well. No thrush. It went away after a few months.

[mambera]

Thrush is hard to scrape off, and if you do it leaves an inflamed patch that may bleed slightly. Milk tongue scrapes off easily with the pad of a finger. hth

[DaniMama]

Originally Posted by mambera

Thrush is hard to scrape off, and if you do it leaves an inflamed patch that may bleed slightly. Milk tongue scrapes off easily with the pad of a finger. hth

[1babysmom]

Oh I also wanted to say that sometimes my girls' milky tongues WOULDN'T scrape completely off, so don't be alarmed if it doesn't.

[LROM]

So you've already gotten the clear "no, white tongue often is NOT thrush" answer, but also you should look for the other symptoms of thrush to determine if it is or not. My baby had a white tongue too in the first few months and a doc at a pediatric hospital (I'd taken dd for a different reason) even looked at it and said "Yes, it's thrush" and called in the prescription for Nyastaton or whatever the stuff is.

But then I googled it and read about it and asked around, and there were NO other symptoms and sure enough, not thrust at all. It was so frustrating that a pediatric doc would misdiagnose like that, he didn't even ask me about any other sypmptoms, just said "yeah, thrush".

So... healthy milk tongue most likely, but if you've got pain or redness or other thrush symptoms clearly you should look further into it. No other symptoms... likely no thrush!