How to Care for a Baby's Belly Button Tips for Tubing Bath

Umbilical Cord Care

What Is an Umbilical Cord?

The umbilical cord is the tube-like structure that carries food and oxygen from a female parent to their baby while meaning. Information technology also carries waste products abroad from the baby so the mother'southward body tin go rid of them.

After y'all requite nascency, doctors clamp and cut the cord. The string has no fretfulness, so neither yous nor your baby will feel anything. A modest stump volition exist left on your kid's belly. Information technology can be anywhere from a half-inch to an inch long.

At first, the stump might look shiny and yellowish. Just every bit it dries out, it may turn brown or greyness or even purplish or blue. It'll shrivel and plough black before it falls off on its ain.

Normally, it comes off between 10 and xiv days subsequently your baby is built-in, but can accept as long as 21 days.

Caring for Infant'south Umbilical Cord Stump

Hither are a few things to keep in mind until the cord comes off:

• Exist gentle. Keep your hands off of it, and don't ever pull on information technology.
• Go along the string make clean and dry at all times. Skip the tub and sink and requite your infant sponge baths instead.
• Exit the string alone until it falls off past itself. (In the past, doctors suggested cleaning the cord'due south base with rubbing alcohol to help it dry out, but that guidance has inverse.)
• Fold diapers so that they residual below the string to shield it from your lilliputian one's pee. You tin can expect for diapers that have an surface area cut out for the string or cut a spot out of a regular diaper. Just identify a piece of tape effectually it to seal the edges.

If your babe has a messy bowel motility and some stool gets on the cord, clean it gently with soap and water.

Cheque the string oftentimes for infections. Call your doctor if you see:

• Blood on the terminate of the cord
• A white or yellow discharge
• Swelling or redness around the string
• Signs that the area around the cord causes your baby pain (for instance, they cry when yous bear on it)

If your baby had a depression birth weight because they were born prematurely or had some other health outcome, they may exist more likely to accept an infection, so information technology'due south good to keep an especially shut eye out for whatsoever of these signs.

What Happens When the Stump Comes Off?

It's normal to run across a few drops of blood in your baby'southward diaper. Only if at that place's a lot of blood as the cord separates, phone call your doctor right away.

If the cord hasn't come off after 3 weeks, be patient. Continue the area dry out and make certain information technology's non covered by your kid's diaper. If it hasn't come off in half-dozen weeks, or you see signs of fever or infection, call your doc.

Once the cord is gone, continue to keep the area make clean and dry. Y'all might notice a yellow, pasty fluid that oozes out. This is normal. It sometimes happens when the cord comes off. It's non pus, and information technology'south not an infection.

You might too see a scab over the navel. This is normal, also. Just if your baby'south stomach gets crimson, they run a fever, or yous notice a cloudy belch, call your physician.

Sometimes, a little scar tissue may grade a scarlet mass on the belly button. This bump is called an umbilical granuloma. If y'all see this and it doesn't get away in about a week, permit your doc know. They'll apply silver nitrate to it. Information technology'll burn down the surface area then the tissue dries upwards. Merely call up, the string has no nerves, so your baby won't feel it.

At some point, you'll probably wonder what kind of abdomen push your child will take. Will it exist an "innie" or an "outie"? You'll accept to wait until the stump is gone to know for sure. But know that the style your baby's navel will look has nothing to practice with how the doctor cut the umbilical string.

Umbilical Cord Complications

They don't happen ofttimes, but some health conditions are linked to the umbilical cord stump, including:

• Omphalitis: This is when the area around the stump of the umbilical cord gets infected. Symptoms can include tenderness, bleeding or fluid leaking from the bellybutton, irritability, and fever. Information technology needs treatment with antibiotics.
• Umbilical hernia: With this condition, part of the babe's intestine pokes through the muscles well-nigh their belly button. It'southward non normally serious and typically gets better on its ain past age 2.

Umbilical granuloma: This is a modest, pinkish-cherry lump that doesn't autumn off when the rest of the umbilical cord does. It doesn't injure, and your babe's doc tin can remove it past tying it off with stitches or freezing it with liquid nitrogen.

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Source: https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/baby-umbilical-cord

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