Hello there! I am Flo for those of you that don’t know me yet and today I plan talking about conjunctivitis in babies.
Arianna’s left eye started having a whiteish discharge last Sunday. It was such an insignificant amount that didn’t alarm me at all, but when on Monday morning her eye became red and swollen and the lid was sticky, I started worrying. I knew that conjunctivitis is quite common in babies, but didn’t knew how to react. My husband definitely panicked and wanted to take her to A&E, but there was no need for that.
Conjunctivitis is an eye infection that can be caused by a bacteria, a virus or an allergy and in most cases is contagious. For newborns (under 28 days old) it is a high risk of complications and it’s recommended to seek urgent medical advice.
Being a new mother it’s heart breaking seeing your baby being uncomfortable and you exaggerate the situations most of the time, but in my job I’ve learned to take a deep breath before acting and to trust my instincts. This time, although I was worried, I knew there is no need to panic, so I went to the pharmacy. I was quite expecting to be told to see the GP first as Arianna is only 5 months old, but as the GP surgery was super busy, I said I can try at least to see what other advice I can receive. As I thought, the pharmacist said she needs antibiotics, but to be prescribed by her doctor.
We managed to get to the GP in afternoon. Until then I cleaned her eye with warm water and cotton balls, but it became red around it anyway and it looked like she was beaten, which made me feel like a horrible parent. In Romania, there is a saying that chamomile tea is septic and it’s the best for these kind of conditions, so I do admit that I used it to clean her eye as well. Can’t say if it made any difference or not, but when the GP prescribed antibiotics in eye drops form we started it right away and the eye got better in two days.
Conjunctivitis is contagious so it is recommended that you wash your hand with water and soap after each time you clean the infected eye and that you use different towels. The only form of conjunctivitis that is not contagious is the allergic one, but even if the viral or bacterial ones are easy spreadable there is no reason why the baby or child can’t do the everyday activities that he made before.
This was our experience with conjunctivitis and it ended up not as traumatic as I was expecting to be. The eye drops worked very quickly and well and Arianna didn’t even seemed bothered about her red eye.
Leave a comment down below with your experience with conjunctivitis or any tips and tricks you have.
I will post again on Monday, but until than have a great, fun and full of love weekend!
Stay safe,
Flo
