What should I do if my baby’s conjunctiva is inflamed?

Many parents say that their babies have been acting a little abnormal recently, with the specific manifestation being tears and frequent rubbing of their eyes with their little hands. If you find that your baby really does this, it is recommended that the mother should first check whether the baby's eyes are red. If the eyes are red and there is a lot of eye mucus, this is most likely conjunctivitis. So, what should you do if your baby has conjunctivitis?

1. What is conjunctivitis

It refers to inflammation of the white part of the eye. There are three situations:

1. Acute conjunctivitis: The eyes become red, swollen, hot and painful, the eye discharge becomes colored and turns yellow, and the secretion increases.

2. Chronic conjunctivitis: The symptoms are similar to those of acute conjunctivitis, but the course of the disease is longer, generally 6 weeks to 3 months.

3. Allergic conjunctivitis: The eyes are very red, and the baby will say that the eyes are itchy and tearful. If you rub it with your hands again, there may be a secondary infection problem.

2. Causes of conjunctivitis

Usually, younger children have weaker immunity and are more susceptible to conjunctivitis due to bacterial infection. Older children often suffer from infectious conjunctivitis, especially highly contagious viral eye diseases. Pink eye is an acute infectious eye inflammation that is more common in spring and summer.

How to treat conjunctivitis

1. Take your baby to the hospital and carefully find out the cause during the diagnosis and treatment process. Once you know the cause of your baby's eye disease, you should immediately avoid contact and stop the stimulation of allergens.

2. Prepare special towels. Towels and handkerchiefs used by babies should be kept separate and boiled in boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes after each use.

3. Apply cold compress to eyes. Use a cool towel or cold water bag to apply cold compress to your baby's eyes, and avoid hot compress, because hot compress will increase the local temperature and dilate blood vessels, resulting in increased secretions and worsening symptoms.

4. Use eye drops. When putting eye drops in your baby's eye, you must first comfort the baby and let the baby lie on his back with his face upwards, so that the eye drops can stay in the conjunctiva for a while. In addition, the gaps in the conjunctiva are very small, making it difficult for eye drops to stay. Plus, the eyelids keep blinking, so the eye drops can only stay for a short time. So you must apply eye drops as often as your doctor tells you to, and don't reduce the frequency without authorization. Only in this way can the eye drops work. In order to avoid affecting the baby's vision, it is usually necessary to apply eye ointment to the baby before going to bed.