Breast milk to treat gunky eye in babies???

[Newmummy0306]

Hi all

My 6 week old has a gunky left eye and wiping with cool boiled water only helps for a few hours then it all comes back!!

I've heard of using breast milk, has anyone had any success and how do you use it? Wipe with it or drop it in?

Thanks 😊

Hello, yes, I alternated between breast milk and cooled boiled water when my little boy had an eye infection. I expressed and then wiped his eye with the milk but I suspect you could probably drop it in, too- good luck aiming

I use It, it works beautifully - squirt directly into the eye while feeding, she doesn't seem to notice! Or you can express onto a cotton wool ball and drip it in/wipe it on but I think it's easier to do a quick squirt.

Yep I used breast milk on my DS when he had a sore eye and It cleared up quicker than using boiled water.

Drop it or squeeze it in-miraculous stuff!

I second the squirt!

Didn't work for us, we used saline and that cleared it up very quickly

It's an old wives' tale, I'm afraid. There's no biological mechanism whereby sugary breastmilk could clean up an external infection. Cooled boiled water or saline solution (even better) will clear it up soon.

A few squirts in the eye worked for both of my boys when they had it.

DS had this & people suggested all sorts. One day when he was around a year old he woke up & it was fine. He's 7 now & you'd never know. Ride it out for a bit & it may just correct itself.

Apparently it works wonders but I've never tried it. What's to lose?

Try it, but it didn't work for ds, his gunky eye went on for ages, we used cooled boiled water or saline, but it just regunked and eventually it stopped.

Sugary breastmilk with an abundance of antibodies does work for this.
Successful with both babies.
Feed til drowsy, unlatch, aim and fire!

Worked for us and also more effective than saline for clearing out stuffy noses. I wouldn't have believed it beforehand!

That's not what antibodies do...

Breast milk cleared up my DDs eyes far quicker and with less fuss than the eye drops we were given by the doctor. Used them for a week with very little change, squirted some breast milk directly into her eye one night and the next morning her eye was clear. It also works well on rashes on baby, DP also has me squirt onto his psoriasis and it helps clear it. Amazing stuff.

silkpyjamas that's anecdotal though - it could also have been the week of eye drops taking effect.

Thanks everyone! Will give it a go and hope for the best! 😊

I found a gentle massage around the tear duct area opened it up and once it was open the gunkiness cleared up after a day or two. Wipe with cool boiled water or breast milk. Breast milk is suggested because it is sterile. (Surely sugar would feed a bacterial infection??)

If you want to make your own saline solution, it's half a teaspoon of fine salt in a mug of boiling water then allow to cool before use. Keep the mug in the fridge, don't double dip the same cotton ball, and it will keep for 24 hours. Always use a fresh bit of cotton wool for every sweep of the eye.

It worked on my kids too. Worth a try at least. Breastmilk must have something in it because I dabbed it on dp when he got a couple of wasp stings and the stings healed up in front of my eyes.

Oral antibiotics is the only thing that cleared my little ones infected eye

to the pp that says there's nothing in breastmilk though - you are extremely wrong. Breastmilk has anti bacterial properties - do your research

"Breastmilk has antibacterial properties" makes no sense. I'm a doctor. Breastmilk is full of bacteria - that's one of the things that makes it useful. It doesn't contain some sort of bacteria killing fluid.

Breastmilk contains antibodies that are useful when ingested. It does not work as a topical treatment. That's not how antibodies work.

My DD had a blocked tear duct that caused constant gunkiness until she was about 15 months old. I massaged it and wiped with cooled boiled water every day, but the doctor at the hospital said it would go one day of its own accord as she grew - one day the duct would be big enough for the blockage to clear. That's what happened, it cleared overnight and never came back.

Breastmilk has been shown to have antimicrobial properties (as well as containing bacteria itself). Breastmilk contains lactoferritin which has been demonstrated to have antibacterial properties and has been investigated as a possible solution to multidrug resistance
www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/23/protein-in-breast-milk-could-be-used-to-combat-certain-bacteria-scientists-find

This student mum showed last year that breast milk inhibits bacterial growth www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/people-are-loving-the-results-of-this-breast-milk-petri-dish-experiment_us_589de343e4b094a129ea7815

This trial www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4114003/ showed that colostrum is an effective treatment for neonatal conjunctivitis