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!