Saturday, February 6, 2010

Pink Eye

My baby woke up one morning last spring with his eyes almost plastered shut from yellow eye gunk. The area around his eye was red and swollen, and over the next couple days the whites of his eye were pink. Here's what I did:
  • I brewed some double strength chamomile tea. Every other hour, I dipped clean cotton balls in the tea, squeezed some tea into the corner of my baby's eye, then wiped the gunk out of his eye.
  • Every other hour (when I wasn't applying chamomile tea), I expressed 5-7 drops of breast milk into the corner of my baby's eye. The anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties of breast milk are amazing! Knowing how to hand express breast milk is not only useful to relieve engorgement, but is also helpful to heal infections like pink eye and prevent infections in scrapes and cuts. Click here for a step-by-step guide to hand expression. The most important thing to remember is that the milk sinuses are behind the areola - not in the nipple. Squeezing the nipple will only give you a sore nipple, so make sure you are placing all the pressure on the areola.
After two days of chamomile tea and breast milk, my baby's eye was back to normal. If you have effectively used any other natural remedies for pink eye, I'd love to hear about them!

3 comments:

  1. We have been really lucky to only have pink eye once. We used drops that our doctor gave us and those burnt! Your baby is lucky to have such a smart mama so he doesn't have to suffer.

    For the cold killer I strain it with a coffee filter. Works really well. I also tried making it with the blender and it almost burnt the motor up!

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  2. We have used colloidal silver from the health food store a couple of times and it worked. My daughter said it stung though. :(
    Blessings,
    Lisa

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  3. Hi,
    Just wondering how you and baby are doing! Haven't seen you blog in a while...hope you are both doing well.
    Blessings,
    Lisa

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