7 week old baby's gunky eye

[sirlee66]

My baby's left eye has been gunky pretty much since we have got back from the hospital. MW and HV both said it's to do with his tear ducts and to wipe once with a cotton pad using cooled boiled water and discarding after 1 wipe. HV also suggested putting a drop in breast milk in his eye which I did for a couple of weeks but it didn't help.

Last week I took him to the GP because his eye is still bad they swabbed him and all tests including conjunctivitis have come back as negative and the doctor said it's his tear duct.

Today his eye has been even more gunky than usual and he is struggling to open and close it. I'm wiping it every half an hour because there so much gunk when before it was maybe 2/3 times a day.

I've not changed anything so don't know why it's getting worse? Anyone experienced anything similar?

Did they do both viral and bacterial tests? I’d go back to gp if it’s getting worse.

Use more than a drop of breastmilk! It really works. Get some on the cotton wool to wipe his eye, or just squirt/drip some in. It should work better than water.

Similar experience here, sticky eyes since birth, one eye did get better completely but we still have one sticky eye 4 months on. I've taken my son three times to the gp, they did swabs and we were given eye drops which did help at the time but when the course finished the sticky eye came back. The gp said its just something that some babies get and they will grow out of. It's not too bad some days but we find it gets more gunky when he cries. We just keep cleaning it and massaging, it doesn't seem to bother him too much.

I tried breast milk and it hasn't really helped. When I told my gp she gave a face!

Breast milk isn’t always sterile though so why would you squirt bacteria into a babies little eyes. I’m with the gp on this.

Cool boiled water, fresh every time cotton wool ball pulled in half and use what was the middle bit, so untouched,to wipe once from inner eye near nose to outer and bin.
Repeat, repeat, repeat it will eventually disappear. I had this with my DD.

My ds was the same at that age we just kept doing the cooled boiled water several times a day.. But it went away on its own about 10 weeks.. Was also told year ducts and was told by gp that it for some babies it can take 6 months for them to develop enough to stop it.

My youngest had this and I used cotton wool sometimes with cooled boiled water and sometimes with breastmilk. Some days gunkier than others. Then all of a sudden it just fixed itself. No issue since and he is almost 4 now.

We had this, it finally went when she was 8 months old, a bit before an ophthalmology appointment finally came through!
If you think it’s getting worse, take her back, the GP should not mind. Because of the extra gunk from the tears not draining properly, they are more prone to infection.
It may well get worse if baby has a cold.
They don’t necessarily like giving lots of antibiotic drops for wee ones, so it is a bit of a balancing act.
Mine got one really nasty infection and had to have oral antibiotics as well as drops. I’d got so used to the manky eye I nearly didn’t take her back!

Euphrasia mother tincture great for this. Helios sell it.