It is enough for an adult to wash with cool water in the morning to be vigorous and fresh all day. Newborns also need to start their day by washing their faces and taking care of their eyes, and this will require a number of simple steps from the mother.
How does this happen?
You need to take care of the baby's eyes by washing them from the outer corner to the inner one. It is imperative to rinse the eyes with clean hands and with boiled water. To make it more convenient, you can use cotton pads, only necessarily made of high-quality cotton wool. To do this, take one cotton pad, soak it in water and squeeze it slightly. With a squeezed disk, one eye is carefully washed, then with the help of another, clean disk, the second.
It is important to remember that every morning the eyes of a newborn should be carefully examined for redness, swelling of the eyelids, and discharge. The discharge can be whitish, in a small amount accumulating in the corner of the eye, or there can be abundant yellow-greenish, dry and mucous, which prevent the child from opening his eyes. In this case, it is necessary to show the baby to the doctor.
Why is it important to watch the eyes of a newborn?
Obstruction of the nasolacrimal canals in babies is not uncommon. Most often, it can be restored as a result of daily massage, or it recovers itself. If the massage is ineffective, a pediatric ophthalmologist may recommend probing the nasolacrimal canals - this is a special procedure to restore their patency. The baby's body is not yet able to perform all the functions that are predetermined by nature. The discharge of tears in adults provides hygiene and disinfection of the eye, but in children under two months of age, the eye cannot be cleaned well enough, because very few tears are still being produced.
Newborns are also at risk of eye infections. The baby recently overcame his mother's birth canal, which is far from always perfectly clean. If, at the same time, the child has been in an anhydrous period for a long time, the risk of getting an eye infection increases. In the maternity hospital, the baby also has a far from home environment. Therefore, it is important for young parents to ensure hygiene in the apartment, on the changing table and in the baby's bed at the proper level.
Immunity in newborns is still immature, it is difficult for them to fight viruses and bacteria. Therefore, quite often local inflammation turns into a general one.
Thus, even a not particularly aggressive flora can lead to conjunctivitis in a child. If you notice that the child's eyes are reddened all the time, there are discharge, swelling of the eyelids, you need to perform hygiene procedures with special care and be sure to contact a specialist.
