Parents often ask eagerly with their little ones in their arms, “Is it fire in my baby’s eyes that are always full of boils and tears? We always give our baby water, but it doesn’t get better.” People often associate eye boogers with fire, but for small babies, there may be another reason for the recurring boogers. The most common cause is dacryocystitis, a congenital blockage of the tear duct. Normally tears are secreted from the lacrimal gland to keep the eye moist and excess tears flow through the nasolacrimal duct into the nasal cavity. When a person cries, tears and snot flow out, and people often say “a snotty nose and a tear” is the reason. If any part of this duct becomes blocked, it is called tear duct obstruction. Tears can not enter the nasal cavity, when the tears are few, they will be teary-eyed, and when there are many tears, they will flow out along the corner of the eye. The tears accumulate in the tear ducts and cannot be drained out, which can also lead to inflammation in the tear sacs, manifested as increased yellow, sticky eye stools. This is a common disease in infants and children, with a prevalence of about 6% in full-term infants. The lacrimal gland is not well developed in newborn babies, and there is no way to observe whether the tear ducts are open when they cry. Usually 3-4 weeks after birth, if the baby’s eyes are watery even when he or she is not crying, especially if there are tears in one eye and no tears in the other, then parents should be alert to the problem. Take your baby to the hospital as soon as possible to check the cause of the tears. A tear duct irrigation will confirm the diagnosis. In addition, conjunctivitis, inverted eyelashes, corneal foreign body, glaucoma can also lead to tearing and excessive eye stools, so be sure to go to the regular hospital to exclude the above diseases. So what kind of harm can tear duct obstruction do to your baby? In mild cases, the symptoms are only tearing and eye stools with eyelid eczema. If the dacryocystitis worsens, the skin in the tear sac area, which is the inner corner of the child’s eye, will bulge and become red and swollen, and eventually the skin will break down to form a fistula with a large amount of pus overflowing. Not only is it very painful for the child, but it can later cause scarring on the child’s face, which can affect the child for the rest of his or her life. When the inflammation attacks the adjacent eyelid and the deep orbit, orbital cellulitis may form, endangering the child’s life. Of course, parents should not be anxious when their child develops these symptoms. Generally, after the first month of life, babies can be brought to the hospital for tear duct irrigation, and after the diagnosis is confirmed, some babies can be cured with medication and local massage under the guidance of a physician. Even if conservative treatment fails, a small lacrimal intubation procedure at 5-6 months of age can cure most children with tear duct obstruction. In our children’s hospital, we often see children with lacrimal duct obstruction, but unfortunately some of them do not come to the hospital until they have severe dacryocystitis, so if you find that your baby’s tearing and eye discharge is always bad, do not treat it as a fire and delay the condition.