Children crying for no reason, inexplicably blistered on the lips, halfway through drinking the milk, he begins to hold his breath and twist his body into an S shape…Novice parents may feel helpless when facing all of this. When they ask the elderly for help, the elderly will say something meaningful, “it will be ok when he grows up”. But when will they grow up? How many mysteries the novice parents need to encounter when the baby grows up?
Let's go through it from start to finish:
1. When does the fontanelle close?
When a newborn is born, the skull is not completely closed, and the gap left by the bones is known as the fontanelle. You can gently touch the top of your baby's head and feel a soft spot between the bones, which is the fontanelle. Babies have two fontanelles, the anterior fontanelle on the top of the head and the posterior fontanelle on the back of the head.
The fontanelle helps the head narrow slightly when the baby travels through the birth canal so that the baby can be delivered more smoothly. The presence of the fontanelle also leaves a little room for the brain to collide when the baby falls. Please note that if you feel a bulge and swelling of the fontanelle after your baby falls, seek medical attention immediately, as this may have injured the baby and caused intracranial hypertension.
There are other causes of fontanelle swelling, such as meningitis, cerebral hemorrhage, hydrocephalus, abscess, or other causes of increased pressure in the brain. Sometimes the fontanelle is also sunken, which may be due to dehydration.
The posterior fontanelle usually closes when a baby is 2 months old, and the anterior fontanelle can close between 4 and 26 months. During the unclosed period, you can gently touch it with clean hands (remember not to force too much of it).
If the fontanelles close early or late, this is not normal and may be related to abnormal thyroid hormones or other abnormal thyroid function. Talk to your doctor and discuss treatment options.
2. Can a stork bite disappear and when?
A stork bite, or you can call it nevus simplex, is a common neonatal birthmark. It is a plaque formed by the stretching and dilation of certain blood vessels. It is usually red or pink and appears around the nape of the neck, on the eyelids, forehead, under the nose, or at the top of the head. It will darken from irritability or when crying.
Don't worry, stork bites are generally harmless, and the marks will usually disappear or fade around 1 year of age. However, those that grow on the back of the neck area will always exist.
3. What are the sucking blisters on the lip? Does it matter?
A few days after birth, you may notice small blisters on your baby's mouth, usually the upper lip, like blisters or crusts. Don't worry if your baby isn't crying uncharacteristically, it's usually sucking blisters. This is usually caused by sucking friction during feeding and generally does not require treatment, and it usually goes away within a few days to a few weeks.
If it doesn't go away, then your baby may have a latching problem. The wrong way to latch makes them use their lips to latch on to the nipple, so it's imperative that they need to establish a good latch. For example, they open their mouths to cover the entire areola, etc. If online textual descriptions of breastfeeding methods confuse you, you can seek advice from your doctor.
There are also several ways to help blisters heal:
- Breast milk: Mother's breast milk contains many nutrients, fats, and vitamins. For example, immunoglobulin A is a blood protein that contains bacteria to fight infection, and palmitic acid is a super humectant. Gently apply a few drops of breastmilk to your baby's lips to reduce the risk of infection. (We mentioned before that if your nipple breaks from sucking, you can also apply a few drops of breast milk to relieve the pain, read more here)
- Lanolin Cream: Similar to the treatment of cracked nipples, it can also help treat sucking blister on your baby's lips;
- Natural oils: Olive or coconut oil can also help moisturize and soothe, and just a few drops is fine.
4. When does the umbilical cord fall off？
The umbilical cord would be cut and there’s a stump left, and it usually dries and falls off naturally within 2-3 weeks.
You can clean it with alcohol every day when it is not fall off, and pay attention to drying the water in time after bathing. Babies wearing diapers can fold down the front of the diaper to avoid friction.
It's normal to have a few drops of blood when it falls off, just take it easy. However, if there is abnormal exudation, redness and swelling around the umbilicus, it may be an umbilical cord infection, and you must contact a doctor immediately for timely treatment. If it is still not separated after 3 weeks, please also inform the doctor, who will determine whether interventional treatment is required.
5. What is an umbilical hernia?
An umbilical hernia is an obvious bulge of the belly button that you can see, which is more pronounced when the baby is crying, and returns to its original position when the baby is quiet, as if it never happened. The reason for umbilical hernia is that the baby's abdominal muscles have two large muscle groups around the navel. When still in the womb, the umbilical cord needs to pass through the middle to absorb yin and yang from the mother. As the baby is born, the opening in the abdominal muscles closes, sometimes not completely, known as an umbilical hernia.
Umbilical hernias are common, especially among African Americans, occurring in between 10% and 20% of all children, with no difference in boys and girls.
Umbilical hernia usually heals automatically at the age of 2, but sometimes new parents will be very anxious, and then consult a doctor to see if they can fix it. Some doctors will tell you that you can use a belt to help the navel to prevent the umbilical hernia from getting worse when the baby is crying. Stop, don’t do that. Applying tape to the navel will not speed up healing but can cause infection.
If it has not closed by the age of 3-4, doctors will usually recommend you to do surgical repair, which requires general anesthesia.
6. When will the nasty colic end?
Colic usually appears at dusk or around 5 a.m., and the baby usually manifests as screaming and crying without warning, lasting from a few minutes to an hour. No one currently knows the cause of these symptoms, and there is no good way to deal with them. Novice parents often can only watch their baby suffer, bewildered and exhausted.
You can try baby massage, exhaust exercises, gently rocking, walking around with a baby carrier, and the “airplane hug”. It will magically disappear at 3-4 months old.
If you are concerned about other problems with your baby's body, you can take it to the doctor to rule out an intestinal obstruction.
7. When will the trembling end?
Babies sometimes have inexplicable trembling movements. Generally speaking, new parents will be particularly worried when they see such movements, whether their baby is sick. In fact, the immature nervous system can cause muscle twitches, manifested in the shaking and jerking movements that occur when a baby falls asleep or wakes up.
This can be a benign disorder, especially when a newborn goes to sleep, which goes away on its own within 3 months to a year, with no inherent consequences and cause for concern.
For new parents, the baby is a blind box that is pre-booked 10 months in advance. You don't know whether it is a boy or girl, what the personality is, and what he/she will look like. And like most of the problems babies encounter as they grow up, new parents are at a loss for answers. Every time they encounter it, they would hurriedly ask their relatives and friends, ask netizens online, and ask Google for answers.
Please rest assured, nowadays the media information is so developed, almost all the answers have professional answers on the Internet. If you are unsure, you can consult a doctor more often. After all, the baby we look forward to for 10 months, the baby we hope to take care of for our lifetime, deserves all the meticulous care.
If you have more doubts about taking care of children for new parents, you can come to bonoch to find the answers.