What is the reason for excessive earwax in children?

Many adults pick their ears when they feel itchy, because in people's minds, itchy ears are caused by too much earwax in the ears. Many parents have obsessive-compulsive disorder. After picking their own ears, they also want to pick their baby's ears. After observing the baby's ears, they find that the baby has a lot of earwax. What is the reason for children to have so much earwax? This may be because parents have not cleaned the baby's ears for a long time. Let's learn more about it.

1. What is the reason for excessive earwax in children?

The cerumen glands of newborn babies secrete more vigorously, and the external auditory canal is relatively narrow and long, the muscles are relatively loose, and the joints are not strong enough when chewing. Normally, earwax is not easy to be discharged, and a darker, yellowish-brown, very sticky oily substance often forms in the external auditory canal, commonly known as "oily earwax". This is a normal phenomenon. Mothers can use a cotton swab dipped in water to gently wipe the baby's external auditory canal to remove earwax.

If earwax is secreted too much and condenses into hard lumps, it will cause blockage of the external auditory canal. At this time, once water enters the ear, the earwax plug will naturally expand, irritate the skin of the ear canal, and easily cause external ear canal inflammation. In this case, the baby's earwax should be thoroughly cleaned. However, because the baby's ear canal is narrow and the skin is delicate, if the adult cleaning method is used, it is easy to cause damage to the baby's ear canal and eardrum. At the same time, most babies do not accept others making excessive movements on their ears. They will twist their heads around, or simply refuse to cooperate or even cry, which may cause mothers to accidentally injure their baby's eardrums. Therefore, it is best to take your baby to the hospital and ask an ENT doctor for help, and never force your baby to remove earwax at home.

2. Do children need to remove excessive earwax?

Earwax is medically called cerumen, also known as earwax. It is a sticky substance secreted by the cerumen glands in the subcutaneous tissue of the external auditory canal. It can keep the ear canal lubricated and maintain a certain humidity. Earwax is in the external auditory canal and, together with the ear hair growing in the external auditory canal, can adhere to and block dust, desquamated cells produced by local skin metabolism, flying insects and other foreign objects, thereby playing a role in protecting the external auditory canal and eardrum. There is a thin layer of light yellow cerumen attached to the normal external auditory canal. Generally speaking, as long as the child's ears do not hurt or itch and his hearing is good, earwax does not need to be removed manually. When you talk, eat or sneeze, the earwax in the ear canal will gradually loosen and fall off as the jaw moves, and be discharged unconsciously. A small number of children have strong cerumen glands, and their external auditory canals are relatively narrow and long, with loose muscles. The jaw joints are not strong enough when chewing, and earwax is not easily expelled. If they often use bacteria-carrying fingers to pick their ears, damaging the skin of the external auditory canal and causing inflammation, the earwax will increase and gather with external dust to form larger clumps, and even harden, forming brown earwax plugs that tightly block the ear canal. Cerumen impaction can compress the eardrum, causing ear pain, tinnitus, and even dizziness. Once water is poured into the ear canal when taking a bath or washing your hair, the cerumen plug will be softened and enlarged, aggravating the blockage and causing inflammation of the external auditory canal and tympanic membrane. In order to remove the excessive earwax in children's ears, some parents often use hairpins, toothpicks, matchsticks, ear spoons, etc. to pick out the earwax in their children's ears, which is harmful to their health.