My DD's a week old, and she had some serious eye discharge on Sunday, all day. It looked to me like blocked tear ducts (My nephew's had them, so I know what they look like) but her ped is insistent that she's too young to have tears yet and he wants me to stick antibiotic ointment in her eyes a few times a day to "clear it up".
The whites of her eyes are white, not pink; and her eyes don't seem to be irritating her at all. Also, I've been massaging the tear ducts during nursing and the amount of **** has decreased SIGNIFIGANTLY.
So, moving right along; anyone else have a baby this young with blocked tear ducts? Or with what you thought were blocked tear ducts? What'd you do? Or did it clear up on its own?
(Oh, just thought, should also mention she did NOT have the eye **** at birth
Some babies do have tears at birth. The best thing you can do is massage it with clean hands, as you're doing, and put breastmilk in it whenever you nurse. Breastmilk is very antibacterial.
Just wondering but even if a newborn wasn't producing tears the ducts would still be there wouldn't they, so they could still have something in them? They don't just appear suddenly later on. Anyway, my daughter's had a similar sounding thing since birth, my midwife and health visitor both thought that as long as the discharge is clear or light yellow that it's okay to leave and watch for changes. If it got really gooey or green to treat it. She's 11 weeks now and it's still there of a morning but I just wipe it with cooled boiled water. I read some good threads about it on her, maybe do a search for them.
My DS had a blocked tear duct at about the same age also. I treated it with massage, would clean the goop away with some sterile saline eyedrops and would also squirt a little breastmilk on there. It cleared up in a week or so.
Originally Posted by reader
Some babies do have tears at birth. The best thing you can do is massage it with clean hands, as you're doing, and put breastmilk in it whenever you nurse. Breastmilk is very antibacterial.
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