Yesterday morning, baby Yirmiyahu woke up with an eye infection – one eye was sealed shut with dried gunk.  He had this several weeks ago as well, and both times I treated it easily, naturally and frugally.

The remedy for an eye infection in a baby is so easy that it’s almost not worth mentioning, except not everyone is aware of this!  You simply put a few drops of mother’s milk in his open eye.  For the first eye infection he had, I had to do this several times, but yesterday just one time was enough to totally clear up the infection.  This works because breast milk has an antibody in it called immunoglobulin A that limits the growth of the bacteria.

Breast milk is very useful in treating the small infections that babies get – you can use it for stuffy noses and ear infections, in addition to eye infections.  (Some use it for cuts and scrapes, but I’ve never done this.)  The approach is the same for all of these – just put some drops of milk in a few times a day, until it clears up.  It doesn’t sting, smell bad, or necessitate a trip to the store to buy a bottle of medicinal drops – you just need to be a nursing mother and voila! – with a few seconds you can easily help your baby feel better.

Avivah