Newborn ailments I came across

Not everyone has the stomach to hold a newborn. They are so tiny and delicate and weird looking. They look so different to a regular human. So people are scared of them. But mothers are normally expected to be not scared as they are the "mothers". On the other hand, you would think being extra hurtful and sensitive about the babies is considered normal for mothers, but no. That's just unnecessary drama because they haven't been around babies. "It's common for babies to cry all the time, it's actually healthy", they say.

But the truth is mothers are hardwired to be cautious and scared with the newborn behaviours. It is common for the fourth trimester to feel like you are in a war and your senses are heightened. People might say it's something you should snap out of, but its not in your control, its hormones gone haywire. You will get back to better balance of hormones eventually but no need to beat yourself up if you are constantly tensed.

There are certain newborn ailments completely harmless and they grow out of them soon. I came across these in first 6 months.

Jaundice

Pretty common for newborns. Based on the intensity, paediatrician will suggest treatment which most probably is phototherapy and breastfeeding. Babies are exposed to blue light with their clothes off. Eyes and private parts are protected. It got very heated for my baby but when it did, we just took her out for few minutes. There is no evidence of sun exposure helping with the newborn jaundice, your doctor might advise you against it too. Baby's eyes might look pale yellow and skin too sometimes. I was scared to see this even after the pediatrician declared her fine. But within couple of weeks, the yellow in the eye came down.

Reflux/Silent Reflux

This was completely unheard of, for me. I knew baby might vomit now and then but didn't know it could be extremely intense even causing a slow weight gain. So apparently due to underdeveloped esophagus muscles and also since they stay on their backs through out the day, infants spit or vomit milk. This is infant reflux and it could be an issue with most of the babies. So the symptoms, you can look up on any major medical website, they are like hard to burp, crying after feeding, back arching (which my baby girl did a lot), hard time sleeping and a lot of hiccuping. 

My baby wasn't gaining weight and we had a hard time, but she wasn't vomiting that often. So we could not understand it was reflux. That is until I heard of silent reflux. This is when the baby's stomach pushed its contents up but it is not reaching till the mouth. That is a heavy burning sensation in the chest area and it was very painful watching our baby. Once she got her medication, we saw huge improvement. There are certain home remedies and we followed those too, like keeping her upright for 15-20 minutes after a feed, lots of tummy time, gave her pumped milk and formula milk for weight gain. I was not ready to believe that reflux peaks 4-6 months of age but that is true, we had to use medicine couple of times. But rest assured, it did get better after 6 months and almost disappeared. There are severe cases sometimes which need guidance of a pediatrician.

Colic

This is tricky. By definition, Colic is when a healthy baby cries a lot for a longer time than most babies. But the thing is almost all babies get fussy in the evenings, some call it witching hour. Many theories around it but yes, some babies are really hard to calm down. One pediatrician declared that my baby had colic, gave colic drops and antibiotic without even looking at her and examining properly, just by her incessant crying. That actually is a longer story but from what I researched and what I felt, my baby didn't show exact signs of colic. She was extremely gassy in the evenings and she cried so loud and for a long period during those evenings. 

Many elders swear by gripe water for such crying babies but I personally am skeptical since it had so many preservatives that I want to avoid for a child. Alternates we tried are contact napping just around the evening time and a colic hold my dad did, supporting her head and bum, keeping her at a distance.

Sweating in head

So this was a scary episode I went through. Once we started giving our baby formula, my dad observed she was sweating on her forehead and hairline. So we checked with a pediatrician online since didnt think it was a major thing, but just to be sure. The pediatrician said it could be a heart issue if the baby sweats as they feed and we should consult a doctor in person to get it checked. I remember being a mess for the entire day. Imagine seeing your baby gain weight after a long turmoil and only to encounter such nightmare. The next day when we got her checked in person, she was cleared. We learnt that if any baby would have a heart problem , they would have hard time gaining weight too and in general would be weak and inactive. Also, they will have greyish lips.

On another pediatrician visit, we learnt that babies do sweat more than us since their blood circulation is higher than us.

P.S. - Healthy babies' lips also do turn grey when they are cold. If you see them turn grey, try holding them close or wrapping in a thick blanket. They should be back to pink.

Nose clogging

Clogged nose is pretty common for infants, they can't clear mucus and it is nothing to worry. I heard from mom influencers about this and how they use snot sucker (Nose Frida) in US. But here I didn't find something similar. But once my baby faced it, I could see her crying while feeding as she was not able to feed with nose clogged. So for breastfeeding mothers, this is very important. We have been advised by pediatrician to use nasal drops and steam. Those really helped and usually it clears within couple of days.