Need help- baby's congestion wont subside

Hope Zoey feels better Poonam. Just to relax you, it is indeed very common for infants to be congested. This is what worked with my son.

1. Humidifer in his room ran 24-7. Helps loosen up the mucus.
2. Fill the bathroom with steam (close doors n windows, let hot water run for 10-15 mins), and sit with her in there for 10-15 minutes twice a day.
3. Right before going to bed at night, apply a teeny winny dab of vicks to the bottom of her feet and put some socks on.
4. Position her so that her head is higher than her body when she sleeps.
5. BM causes more congestion it seems. We were asked by the ped. to replace some of the feed with pedialite.
6. Feed less amt of BM, but more often. My son went from 8 feeds to 12 when he was congested. Fed him every 2 hours instead of every 3 hours.

Dont worry she will be fine in a few days!

 

Hey, does your child still show symptoms of reflux and vomiting... wondering if her unease is not from an infection but from silent reflux. Typically DS was a very congested kid and had a lot of throat noises. The other thing I would observe is he was/is very prone to hiccups (when my mean very, I mean very, not the usually infant type...) That was an instant sign for me that he was having a reflux episode at that point. I know there is not much awareness on silent reflux here among doctors (Acid Reflux Symptoms) The main issue with us was DS was gaining above average, while the typical symptom of Reflux is loss of weight. Going by how frequently your little one is feeding, breastmilk is actually helping her lessen the pain and that could be the reason why she latching every hour or so.
About the congestion, it could very well be a fall out of the reflux, constant irritation of the pathways could lead to inflammation and congestion. Things seem to tie up in my mind, but then I am not a paed.

 

most medical shops have it, the medical equipment shops will surely have it. But some mom here posted the ones she found were of poor quality. When DS was as young as your, we m/w ed a bowl full of water for a couple of min and left it near his bed with a drop of Tea tree oil. Till you get a humidifier, this may carry you through.

 

Poonam,
Try this technique which will make the baby breath easier.
Take a handful of rock salt,roast in hot tawa till the salt gets hot.trasfer to the center of the towel and wrap all the ends.place your palms in the towel with hot salt,and place the warm palm on her forehead,nose and chest.repeat this.besure the temperature is bearable by the baby.

 

Poonam - Your ped is right in that many if not most newborns have noisy breathing, esp at night. I would not call it congestion and most of the time you wont get any mucus even if you aspirate because there is no infection or swelling of the nasal tissues. Its the commonest complaint among new mothers and neither saline nor other nasal drops help much (in fact the medicated drops are downright harmful anf should not be used in newborns as far as possible) In fact I think all the humidification, menthol, eucalyptus etc. wont help either because there isnt anything wrong usually with the baby's nasal passages. (This is very different from when baby has a real cold with lots of sneezing and actual nasal discharge, just like an adult cold). If there was real stuffiness then the baby wont be able to feed because when she closes her mouth for feeding she will have to breathe through her nose and if it is really blocked then she ill stop sucking and breathe instead. Are you seeing such interrupted feeding? This noisy breathing usually goes away by itself without any intervention on our part. The only thing I have found to work sometimes is to elevate the head and shoulders of the baby on a pillow/rolled-up blanket - not the head alone like an adult but the pillow needs to be under the shoulders too so as not to let the neck bend forward and obstruct the windpipe more. Maybe you could get a second opinion too and that will pick up any underlying problems.

V.

PS - Hiccups 4-5 times a day is absolutely normal.

 

Eucalyptus works fine for me, but for DS it does not... so we swear by TTO now. both of them have anti-bacterial and decongestant properties.