Help! Babies thrush on tongue is driving me up the wall!!!!

[devotion]

Hello

I had to take an antibitoic for masititus when my baby was only 10 days old. Since then she has had thrush only on her tongue and us now six weeks old!

I was given a cream for my nipples a couple of weeks ago and a gel for her mouth. The cream said not for breastfeeding or pregnant women or to be taken orally??? My gp said its fine to use and to apply twice a day but make sure i washed it off before feeding. it always felt like i was washing it off soon after it on and regret to say i was not very good at it. i had no symptoms on my nipples.

the gel seemed to help my baby but i had to use it for a long time, stopped over a week ago and noticed it is back on her tongue again.

i read up about it and it says in rare cases it can hurt them when feeding. she seems to get reall upset during feeds at the moment so i am worried its the thrush.

i have been really clean, washing hands all the time, sterilising dummies reg - where am i going wrong?

one website suggests giving boiled water after feeds to wash mouth, is that ok with a baby so small?

also another site suggest baking soda and warm water rubbed around mouth? anyone tried and tested this?

its so annoying and i feel so bad for her that the only reason she has it is from me having an antibiotic.

any advice would be really appreciated!

thank you

How do you know she has thrush on her tongue? If you mean a white film/covering it is prob just milk residue.
Breastfed babies defintely dont need water at this age and I would not go anywhere near a baby's mouth with baking soda!!

If thrush is bothering you, you could try taking a pro-biotic rather than using cream and washing it off etc. What cream was it you were prescribed?

sorry just read your post again and its not thrush which is the prob.
But a pro-biotic may still be an idea as it may help your LO.

Thanks for your post, do you mean rubbing pro-biotic yougurts on my nipples instead of a cream and eating it

cream prescribed for me was clomtrimazole 1%

Sorry I was a mit muddled, I meant you could take a pro-biotic as that might help your DD get rid of the thrush.
But are you 100% sure she has thrush? What are her symptoms?

well i am not 100%, she has thick white stuff on her tongue, more near the back, looks curdled and darker bits on it, just a tiny bit which i thought was fungus.

i cant rub it off but it is difficult reaching it without making her gag.

its not anywhere else in her mouth. daktarin did help at first but not sure how long i can use it for.

she feeds fine but now and then more near the end of a feed she comes off crying and fussing at the breast going on and off before bursting into frustrated tears.

after feeds she can be unsettled for awhile, not all the time though.

she is very restless and hard to settle, sleeps great at night but i can not put her down in the day at all ! its making my life very hard as i have two other girls. i have to carry her in the sling, the longest i can put her down is 10 mins max!

excuse bad one handed typing.

gp was supposed to call me back today, i asked for him to call my mobile as i was out but heard a missed call from him on my home phone - annoying!

DD2 was the same, horrible isn't it? It cleared after two bouts of treatment for her (scraped the white stuff off with my fingernail, boak) and applying nystatin drops 4x a day.

I used daktarin cream on my nipples as I was in a lot of pain (lucky for you that you have no symptoms).

I did have a bit of a purge indoors, washed all her linen on 60 degrees, and had a good day of sterilising and disinfecting everything that sat still long enough.

There is loads of stuff on the breastfeedng network site, can't do links sorry but I just googled it.

Good luck, once it was sorted she returned to feeding well with no ongoing problems.

nystatin from the doc should do the trick. it seems to be more effective than the gel

thanks!

seeing gp tomorrow.

why do you have to wash linen? i can understand vests as wee may get through from nappies.

the side of my breast is sore today but there is no redness or lump so dont think it could be mastitus

will ask gp for nystatin

sterilising linen wont help the thrush in the mouth..it just needs a more effective antifungal than the gel. You might have thrush of the milk galnds which has passed on to LO

Hope the GP has helped.

My LO had thrush from when she was born until she was 12 weeks old because the GP refused to believe that she had it!!

Eventually we saw a different GP who prescribed Daktarin (I was FF so didn't need to have anything myself). She used it for 3 weeks and it completely cleared up.

However, it had become so bad that after it had cleared up, she wouldn't take any milk, because she'd been used to the rank taste in her mouth and didn't like the milk once it had gone! She stopped putting on weight and it has taken forever to get her back to normal. Even now, at 9 months old, she will only have hot milk (not warm) and her food has to be hot aswell. She won't have anything cold unless she's feeding herself.

It's a nightmare and since it all started once the thrush had cleared, obviously (to me) of a problem left untreated for too long.

So, sorry about the waffle, but don't let it go if you are still worried.