Is this an eye infection in a baby?

[ridingsixwhitehorses]

DS is 5 months - rotten cold. Green gunk each morning in the eyes (not just snot he's rubbed across his face) then a teeny bit of gunk in the day. Not a full on infection as he had when newborn which I treated with chloramphenicol. Not really bothering him except when I wipe it away.

Question is - if it is just by product of a cold will it go away on its own. Or does green gunk coming out eye always go on to be worse if left untreated in which case I will get going with the chloromphenicol now rather than wait for it to get worse. I know it is meant to be prescription only for under 2s but, er, I am fine just not telling pharmacist age of the child to save trip to GO if that is all they are going to suggest we do.

All three of my sons had green, gunky stuff in their eyes at various points when babies - usually when they had a cold and wiped snot from their nose into their eyes (nice!) leading to infection / conjunctivitis.

I have both treated the gunk and not treated it and I can honestly say it's made no difference at all to the rate at which it cleared up. If my youngest (11 months) got it now I really wouldn't bother going to the GP for drops unless it went on and on. The struggle of putting them in four times a day is not really worth it when they don't seem to speed up recovery.

As your son's gunk is limited to mornings and a little bit in the day I would leave it and let his eyes flush it through. This is what I would do based on my gunky eye experience!

Hope he feels better soon.

Also, if I remember rightly, most conjunctivitis infections are viral so antibiotic drops won't help anyway. Probably why they made no difference to the speed of recovery in my children!

Thank you MMM is helpful x

Last time my son had it the drops cleared not within a day