Tear ducts

[hayleys1]

Hello all,
I wonder if any of you or you have any friends who have experienced their babies having blocked/not developed tear ducts. My DD is just over 8 weeks old and has had very watery and gunky eyes from approx 2 weeks old. I have taken her to the doctors twice who on both occasions have advised me that she has blocked/not fully developed tear ducts. I was given some ointment as they can become infected where they are unable to drain. They have been red and swollen (when I took her to the docs) and the ointment hasn't made much difference. I have seen that they can take up to a year to fully develop and if not they often have to have a procedure done. I am forever wiping her eyes which is obviously not that comfortable for her and I just wish they would ease! I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this and how long it took for your babies to clear/develop?
Thanks for any help

We had the exact same thing until about 15 weeks but then it died down. He does still get it with a cold though.

My husband continually asked every health professional we saw as he was convinced he had an infection and he convinced two people to swab him but both times came back clear.

We used cotton wool and cooled boiled water. No double wiping with the same ball and really try not to use wet wipes both made it worse for us considerably.

It will go I think a year is very usual x

Yep, had a pretty bad case. Consultant explained the procedure is very rarely necessary from a medical point of view as risk of damage to the eye is basically non-existent.

However, nurseries etc can make it really tricky for parents by refusing admission as it is indistinguishable (to them) from conjunctivitis, and many choose to exclude for conjunctivitis (although they don't need to). So lots of parents feel stuck and opt for the procedure to sort it out. That, plus it looks rather nasty and sore for the kids. Has to be balanced with risk of a GA though.

It's basically self limiting and will improve as the head and tear ducts grow larger . Mine grew out totally by age 2/2.5 years, but it felt like a long time!

DC2 had gunky eyes as a newborn. We were also told it wasn't uncommon and she would grow out of it by 1yo. Sure enough they stopped being gunky after a few months.
As well as the cleaning described by the PP, our GP also recommended massaging the area regularly to clear any blockages.

DS2 had a blocked tear duct until 4 months. It went really bad, then all of a sudden cleared up! I wouldn’t worry at this stage - see if they’ve still got it at 6 months & go from there

I used to keep a glass of cooled boiled water and the cotton wool on a table next to where I fed my youngest. Basically cleaned his eyes every single feed. Agree with using each piece of cotton wool once only etc. We got away with no episodes of infection which I was rather pleased by. I think he still had mucky eyes through till about 11 months or so then I suddenly realised they had cleared up. I did have to explain to nursery later on (started out just with a childminder) when he got messy eyes with every cold that it wasn't conjunctivitis but didn't have too much bother.

Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for all your responses.
I have been cleaning each eye with cooled boiled water (diff wool for each eye) as you have mentioned and also gently massaging the tear ducts as I have also heard that this is supposed to help so I will continue and hopefully in a few months they will clear 😊
Thanks again for all your help x

Hi op, my DD also had sticky eyes which eventually went away when she was around 15 months.

I second PPs recommendations, we massaged the top of her nose 3 or 4 times a day and regularly wiped the eyes.

I was concerned because she often woke up with her eyes practically glued shut and we had to soak her eyes before we could clean them - it looked awful and worried us but never bothered her though.

We saw a consultant about her having the operation but he said even with the eyes being glued shut it wasn't severe enough and that she would likely just grow out of it...which she did! It feels like it's lasting forever at the time but it is so common and the majority of DC do grow out of it.

It’s really, really common. You can also clean with saline which will help to clear them up faster.