Parents often find white in their babies’ mouths, sometimes on the tongue and sometimes on the mucous membranes of the mouth. Many people wonder if it is a mouth ulcer? What to do to relieve it? Fear that the baby is very painful. For small month-old babies, this white stuff is more likely to be thrush or milk scum. Today we will talk about thrush and milk scum. A, thrush thrush is a disease in which Candida albicans infection forms a white patch on the surface of the oral mucosa. It is mostly seen in newborns and infants, especially babies with malnutrition, diarrhea, and long-term use of spectrum antibiotics or steroid hormones. Newborns (babies within 28 days) tend to acquire the infection from the birth canal or from contaminated nipples and toys during breastfeeding. It appears as small white dots attached to the baby’s tongue, palate and buccal mucosa. They are not easily wiped off, are not painful, do not salivate, usually do not interfere with breastfeeding, and have no other symptoms. In severe cases, the entire mouth will be covered with white spots, which may be accompanied by low fever, refusal to eat and difficulty in swallowing. The use of antibiotics can aggravate the condition. (a) What should I do if I have thrush? Although Candida albicans is a fungus, thrush generally does not require oral antifungal medication. 2% sodium bicarbonate solution is used to clean the baby’s mouth before and after breastfeeding or topical application of 100,000 to 200,000 U/ml of mycophenolate solution 2 to 3 times daily (specific treatment plan should also be followed). (ii) How to prevent it? Although thrush usually does not have any serious effects, the baby’s oral discomfort can cause refusal to eat. Therefore, parents should still be alert and do their best to prevent it. 1. Clean the baby’s tableware, bottles and pacifiers frequently. For babies who are small for their age or born prematurely and other high-risk factors, it is important to wash them thoroughly before each use. For full-term healthy babies, you don’t need to clean every time, just once a day. 2, how to clean to be qualified? Many parents feel that it is good to give the baby with hot water, in fact, this does not eliminate all the germs. If you want to play the role of disinfection, after cleaning, put the bottle into a steamer or a special bottle sterilizer for disinfection. Of course, this is only for those bottles that can be heated at high temperatures. If you have a sterilizer at home, you can use it to sterilize. 3. If you are breastfeeding, you should treat your baby together. If you are breastfeeding, in addition to treating your mother together, you should clean your hands and scrub your nipples and breasts with a warm towel before each feeding. Second, milk scale Milk scale often appears on the baby’s tongue, mostly as milk stain residue. Many parents mistook this for poor digestion in their babies, and thought it was “fire” when they ate formula. If your baby has indigestion, it will show up in stools, appetite, and crying. You can’t judge the baby is pathological from the milk scale alone, so let the baby eat some “fire”, “chrysanthemum crystal” and so on, the so-called “fire” things. Many parents feel that it is not normal to have milk scale and always want to wipe the baby clean. Some even said “baby 4 months, thick milk scale on the tongue, how can not brush off”. There is a lot of controversy about how to deal with milk scale, some say let the baby drink a mouthful or two of water and rinse; some say to wipe the baby. On this issue, because it is not pathological, it is not necessary to manage. If the baby has already teething, in order to avoid affecting the milk teeth causing tooth decay, you can give the baby some water after eating milk and wipe the teeth with cotton gauze every day. Third, thrush? Lactation? Dumb and Dumber Generally speaking, it can be gently peeled off with cotton swabs, which is milk scale, and often attached to the tongue. It is not easy to remove with a cotton swab or cotton cloth, and after wiping off the white film, the oral mucosa is red and even painful, which is thrush, often found in the oral mucosa. Fourth, be alert to herpetic stomatitis If herpes appears in the baby’s mouth, surrounded by a red halo, you need to be alert to herpetic stomatitis. This disease, with severe pain, often manifests itself as refusal to eat, drooling, irritability, and even an increase in body temperature, which mostly returns to normal in 3 to 5 days. Because it is due to herpes simplex virus type Ι, antibiotics are not able to shorten the course of the disease and are only used for babies with secondary bacterial infections.