So, my baby girl has had a clogged tear duct in her left eye since she came home from the hospital. I am pretty sure that it was from the eye ointment they apply the first day baby is born to prevent infections and disease transmission through the eye. Although our girl was not in danger of this, really, we had them do it anyway. First hours of parenthood to blame, I guess? Anyway..poor Maya has had the clogged duct consistently since then. We've done the antibiotic drops when the built up tear/mocuous has gotten real crusty and yellow but that was once. Mostly it just looks like Maya has been crying. Her eyes are extremely gooky in the morning,too.
Well, it is supposed to clear up by 9 months and we're getting close to that time and it hadn't cleared up at all. So, I looked into home remedies to avoid having the duct manually opened by a wire with baby under light anesthesia. That freaks me out! To avoid this I started doing research online and talked to my pediatrician to let him know I wanted one month to try to clear this on my own.
So, here is what I have been doing:
Warm compresses soaked in loose, simmered, chamomile tea (new cloths each time)
Wiping the eye off with the chamomile tea (with washed hands and new cloths)
Massaging in a semi-circle from the inner eye area to the nose (kind of like a sinus massage)
Putting breastmilk on the duct area (Yes, that's right)
I started this on Sunday and now it is Wednesday and for the first time in many months, I did not have to clean Maya's eyes upon waking. Yessssss!!! I do have to resort to very silly faces and animal noises during the compress so that baby girl doesn't lose it but it's well worth it!
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