Can your baby have a white tongue and it isn't thrush?

[Song of Joy]

I've treated ds for 3 days with gentian violet now and he still has the same amount of white on his tongue. I thought it was thrush, but with no change I'm wondering if it is just milk. He does have 2 small patches of thrush on his gums, though.....Perhaps my GV is too old and I need a new bottle.

Any ideas?

[4evermom]

A couple times when I didn't brush my tongue enough before going to the dentist, she told me it was plaque on my tongue. Is it all over your baby's tongue, or just in the center back? I can't really brush ds's tongue when I do his teeth, so the center back tends to be whitish.

[EmmalinesMom]

My dd2 is about a week older than your son, and she has white on her tongue too. No symptoms of thrush, and the ped has seen it and not commented, but now you have me curious.

[erikaa]

when i suspected thrush in my dd i took her to the doc and he said if you can scrape the white off their tongues, with your fingernail or tongue depressor for example, then it's just milk. don't know about the gums though?

[Boobs]

Yep. We had the ped look at ds and he explained it, but I don't remember what he said. : It's harmless.

[plantmommy]

Could be just milk on the tongue, and copliks spots or whatever they're called on the gums... I thought my ds had thrush, small spots on the gums that didn't go away, but they're some kind of harmless blister that some babes just get.

[plantmommy]

Sorry, thatwould be Epstein's Pearls.

http://www.drhull.com/EncyMaster/E/Epstein_pearls.html

[Song of Joy]

Thanks! Now I feel better. DD had the white coating on her tongue for as long as she was exclusively b'fed. It wore away after she started solids. I figured it was just milk. Then ds was born, got the white and my LLL leader said it was thrush. So I tried nystatin and GV. No change. We did have some thrush (on the gums), but that does seem to be going away, so the tongue had me really confused.

I think I will treat it as milk on the tongue unless thrush symptoms return.

[Song of Joy]

Originally Posted by 4evermom

A couple times when I didn't brush my tongue enough before going to the dentist, she told me it was plaque on my tongue. Is it all over your baby's tongue, or just in the center back? I can't really brush ds's tongue when I do his teeth, so the center back tends to be whitish.

nak
more center/backish. when i was doing nystatin, i applied it after every feeding with my finger and rubbed it on his tongue. i noticed it went away where i rubbed and right after i rubbed. that made me wonder if it was just milk.

[kadm16]

White tongue and thrush

Hi,
i was under the impression that if it was a cloudy
white film on the tonue then it was just milk.
If it if white "freckles" then it is thrush.

Hope this helps.

[Song of Joy]

This is a white coating. A lot like the back of my tongue looks if I don't brush it well, only whiter and a little thicker looking. A good bit of his tongue is covered, although the edges and tip have no white on them. Does that make any sense?

[jenmarie]

My girl was the same way. Her tongue was white the whole time she was exclusively BF'd. As soon as she started solids, it went away. She never acted like it was thrush, and my nipples were fine, so I never worried about it. *shrug*

[happyathomemother]

My ds had a large white patch on his tongue for the first few months. They say if it scrapes off it is just milk, but this would not scrape off. The doctor saw it twice and was not concerned, and finally it just disappeared. If it is thrush it is supposed to be really thick and look like curdled milk, which this did not.

[threeforme2005]

Yep my DD has this also but it's not thrush. My DS had it the entire time he nursed also and I never had thrush. I think it's fairly common among babies. I'm not going to worry about it with my DD since my son had it too