Hi Jeanette,
Yes, I've certainly heard of the use of breastmilk in eyes. It's almost
common practice where I live. When a newborn baby has conjunctivitis
('dirty, sticky eyes') a mother can express some breastmilk in the eye of
the baby and the lysozyme in it seems to do the trick (she has to be
careful not to touch the infected area with her breast). From the top of my
head this was discussed before on Lactnet and for as far as I can recall
there were as much people pro this use of breastmilk as there were against
it. It's kind of like the cord care guidelines I wrote about to you.
Different places, different guidelines.
I have some anecdotal information for you about this topic. There was a new
breastfeeding mother, her very close friend came to visit her with her 5
month old baby. This baby had terrible sticky eyes (he couldn't open one of
his eyes due to this infection) and his mother told her friend and me that
she tried 'everything', for the last four months and nothing helped (not
even different kinds of medication ;-). I just told the new mother about
all the wonderful stuff that's in breastmilk and the new mother instantly
asked the mother of the 5 month old if she'd tried breastmilk yet. She
didn't know about this and wasn't breastfeeding anymore
:-(. They were such good friends that the new breastfeeding mother
expressed some breastmilk for the 5 month old and a couple of days later
the mom called to say that it was unbelievable, but the boys eyes were cured!
Just anecdotal, but I'll always remember this happy mom!
Warmly,
Renate Rietveld, IBCLC
Rijswijk, The Netherlands
At 10:56 11-4-00 -0400, you wrote:
>Has anyone ever heard of the use of breastmilk for eyes? I thought I had
>read that a study was being done on its effectiveness not only for eyes,
>but for ears and nose. It would make sense to me, but then...
>
>Problem - I'm being asked for "evidence" as it's not in the "protocol"...
>
>Thanks so much to those who expanded my knowledge on cord care and bathing
>of babies - the nurses here are learning a lot - including the "rules" are
>different in other countries. This is the great value of Lactnet -
>expanding us all (now if I could stop expanding in other directions from
>sitting so much at the computer....)
>
>
>Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, IBCLC
>Vacaville, CA
>mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
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--------------------------------------------------------------
Renate Rietveld, IBCLC
E-mail : [log in to unmask]
Homepage: http://www.casema.net/~rietveld/index.htm
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