Natural remedies for thrush?

Wed, Jun 30 2010, 11:35 am

My 1 month old has thrush in her mouth (on her tongue and a little bit on the lips). My pediatrician gave my nystatin but she told me to put 1 ml to each side of the cheek. I thought it was too much and even called back to double check but was told that's correct. Well, I just put 1 ml on one side of her mouth and she proceeded to throw up.

Are there any natural remedies for thrush? I vaguely recall hearing something about baking soda...anybody?

DovDov

Wed, Jun 30 2010, 1:51 pm

I think gentian violet has been linked to cancer, so don't know if you want to do that.

When my newborn had thrush, my pediatrician told me to do two things:

(1) She had me dip my finger in a solution of water and vinegar and dab the baby's mouth with that in between feedings, whenever I remembered. She also told me to dab it on my nipples after nursing to prevent transmission because thrush in the breast can be excruciatingly painful (I had it once).

(2) She told me to give the baby infant probiotics (or, if unavailable, to get adult probiotics and open hte capsules). There are two ways to do this -- (1) put the probiotics in a little cup, mix with breastmilk, and then give the baby with a dropper to the cheek, like the nystatin or (2) wet your nipple and dip it in the probiotics powder just before nursing. That coats your nipple with the powder and the baby gets it when he suckles. I also had trouble getting my baby to take the dropper, but he didn't object to nursing from a powdery breast, so that's what we did.

If you want to go the natural route, you want to do it as soon as possible and be fairly aggressive -- every feeding. Once the yeast gets really bad, it's much harder to fix it naturally and also much likelier to spread to you. And watch out for diaper rashes. A baby with thrush is more likely to get a yeasty diaper rash, and the yeasty diaper rash can lead to thrush. My pediatrician's recommendation for a yeasty diaper rash, if it's not too bad, was to soak a washcloth in vinegar/water, wring mostly out, and lay in the diaper every othe rdiaper change. The alternate changes, use a diaper cream. She'd only prescribe antifungals if it didn't get better after a couple of days with vinegar.

DovDov

Wed, Jun 30 2010, 1:54 pm

Oh, and one other thing -- if you do want to use Nystatin, you can "paint" it on the baby's mouth with a q-tip or even your finger. Nystatin does its work through contact with the baby's mouth, not by absorption into the blood, so even if that doens't use up the whole dose, at least you know it got where it was supposed to get. After all, most of the dropper-dose will end up being swallowed anyway and not helping. I think the large amoutn is to make sure it gets all over th ebaby's mouth.

Wed, Jun 30 2010, 1:55 pm

DovDov wrote:

Thanks. For the water/vinegar solution what was the ratio - equal amount of each?