Some time ago we brought Babies and more One of the most common conditions in newborns, tear obstruction, which causes tearing and secretions in the eyes of children.
Today we stop again in this phenomenon, which is also known as "stenosis of the tear ducts", and that can affect up to 20% of babies in the first months of life.
Lacrimal stenosis is the total or partial obstruction of the small subcutaneous ducts that connect the edge of the inner eyelids (at the inner corner of the eye) with the nose. The condition can be located in one of the eyes or both.
It may happen that when the baby is born Hasner's valve, fold of the mucosa that connects these channels, is not perforated (totally or partially), even it takes a few weeks or months to do so.
Therefore the tears do not drain properly, with the consequent poor cleaning of the ocular surface and stagnation in the tear sac, all of which will produce mucopurulent secretions that make the eye sticky and the eyelashes stick together.
The obstruction of these tear ducts is usually temporary and resolves after a few weeks. You can facilitate the drainage of tears with a gentle massage in the area between the inner angle of the eye and the base of the nose. This, together with proper hygiene of the eye through physiological saline, will cause the stenosis to resolve spontaneously before the age of one year and there are no complications.
If the condition of the secretions does not improve before the sixth month, the specialist must be visited to determine if there are other causes. It also has to rule out conjunctivitis, of a bacterial or allergic nature and in need of special treatment.
If the obstruction persists, it will also be the doctor who determines the need to perform a small surgical intervention to break the membrane and remove said obstruction with a small probe, after dilating the tear duct.
Although, fortunately, as we say, the problem usually resolves spontaneously soon. This type of stenosis was manifested to my baby a few days after birth, although with the measures indicated towards the month of life the disorder had already been resolved.
