Newborn Health Monitoring, Maternal Nutrition, and Infant Care

Physical care for neonates involves monitoring developmental milestones, managing digestive health, and addressing maternal postpartum mental health concerns.

Mother is feeding her baby

Natural Cold Remedies While Breastfeeding

When you are breastfeeding, any medication that you take has the potential to get into your breast milk and affect your baby. Some medications also might reduce your milk supply.

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Close up on Hands and Face of Sleeping Baby

How to Blow Mucus Out of a Newborn's Nose

Newborns can experience congestion for a variety of reasons including illness and allergies. Congestion may interfere with your baby's ability to feed and cause her general discomfort. Since babies lack the skills and abilities necessary to blow their own noses, you must clear your baby's nasal passages for her.

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mother breast feeding her child

Does What You Eat Affect Your Breast Milk?

What a mother eats may affect the taste as well as the composition of her breast milk. Generally, eating a variety of foods with a variety of flavors is beneficial and may influence a child to be a more adventurous eater.

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Signs of Blindness in Newborns

A newborn's eyes are not fully developed, according to Lawrence M. Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Medical Center. The elements of the eyes develop in utero, but the nerve and internal structures continue to grow over the first two years of life.

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surprised baby

Painful Bowel Movements in Newborns

Newborn’s bowel habits vary from baby to baby. However, painful bowel movements can affect any baby, disrupting her daily schedule and making feedings and diaper changes difficult.

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Mother feeding infant girl with a milk bottle

How to Mix Breast Milk With Whole Milk

When your baby turns 1 year old, you may wish to introduce him to cow’s milk. Whole milk is better than skim milk or 2 percent milk for babies this age. Although some parents introduce whole milk to their infant by itself, others prefer the gradual approach and mix the whole milk with breast milk or formula.

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Newborn baby gets breastfeeding

My Breast-Feeding Baby Spits Up After Eating Every Time

Spit-up is a common problem for many newborn babies. The lower esophageal sphincter is responsible for keeping stomach contents in the stomach and not back-flowing, also known as refluxing, into the esophagus. This sphincter is immature at birth and takes time to begin working properly.

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I Stopped Breastfeeding. Can You Start Again Once Your Milk Has Dried Up?

If you've stopped breastfeeding but wish to start again, it can be a relief to know that relactation is possible. It isn't an easy process and could require a long time and a lot of work, but the joy of knowing that you are providing your baby with the healthiest food possible can make the extra effort well worth it.

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Smiling doctor standing in the foreground

Milk Blisters When Not Breastfeeding

A milk blister – also called a “bleb” or “nipple blister” -- can develop even if you are not breastfeeding. As long as your breasts contain milk, a milk blister can develop. Milk blisters can be painful and upsetting, especially if symptoms last for a long period.

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Breastfeeding

Blisters on Nipples From Breast-Feeding

Breast-feeding isn't supposed to hurt, but sometimes a nursing mother develops painful blisters on her nipples. The appearance and treatment of these sores depends on the underlying cause, but they don't need to hamper the breast-feeding relationship.

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Happy mother with baby

The Best Ways to Stimulate a Newborn's Brain Development

A baby’s brain begins to form three weeks after conception, according to the University of Maine. By the time he’s born, a newborn has 100 billion neurons. Some already connect to others, like those that regulate breathing.

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How to Heal Blisters on the Breasts From Pumping

Pumping breast milk may be necessary if you plan to return to work or if you will be away from your baby for another reason. Unfortunately, like breastfeeding, pumping can cause blisters and pain, especially in the beginning. There are two types of blisters that commonly develop on the nipples from pumping.

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Breastfeeding & Having Menstrual Pain

Cramping and bleeding of the uterus can happen to any woman postpartum, no matter how many pregnancies she has had. Menstrual-like pain can be intense and make it difficult to perform daily tasks and care for your newborn. This makes it imperative to understand how to treat menstrual-like pain due to breastfeeding.

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When Can You Clip a Newborn's Nails?

A newborn baby’s nails grow continuously. Fingernails, which grow about 0.1 mm every day, grow faster in children, in males and in the summertime. Newborn’s have little control over their arms and hands. Your might notice that your newborn leaves scratches on his or her face.

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Shingles & Newborns

The varicella-zoster virus is responsible for chicken pox and shingles outbreaks. Shingles, or herpes zoster, is an after-effect of chicken pox. The herpes zoster virus enters your body, usually when you are a child, causing you to experience the itchy red bumps on your skin.

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Breastfeeding & Decrease in Bowel Movements

Health organizations and the medical community encourage women to breastfeed for good reason. It provides proper nutrition for babies, in addition to lowering their risk for sudden infant death syndrome and other health conditions.

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Crying baby

Are Gas Drops Safe for a Newborn?

Simethicone drops -- an over-the-counter remedy used by some parents with colicky infants to reduce gas bubbles in the intestines -- are generally safe for use in newborns. While gas drops are generally safe, it is unclear whether they are effective in decreasing the symptoms of colic.

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a caucasian mother shows off her newborn baby to a nurse while recovering in a hospital bed

Breastfeeding and Constipation in an Infant

Nearly every parent frets about their baby’s bowel movements, or lack thereof. A decrease in the number of bowel movements often indicates constipation in children and adults, so parents naturally despair if their baby does not have a dirty diaper each day.

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Surprise

Cooking With Wine and Breastfeeding

If wine was a staple in your prepregnancy kitchen, you’re probably itching to uncork a bottle during those first few exhausting months of new motherhood.

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Smiling baby

My Nipple Hurts From a Teething Baby

Most babies begin to teethe around three to six months of age, with their first two teeth erupting before the seventh month. It’s not unusual for some babies to get their first teeth later, at one year of age or older. For breastfeeding moms, teething can be a difficult time.

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