Latest / Baby's First 100 Days with Dr. Roma Franzia / If Your Newborn Sounds Congested... You Need to Do THIS (Don’t Suction Yet)

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If Your Newborn Sounds Congested... You Need to Do THIS (Don’t Suction Yet) · Baby's First 100 Days with Dr. Roma Franzia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If your newborn suddenly starts sounding snorty, stuffy, or congested, especially around two or three weeks old, don't automatically reach for the suction.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the funny thing.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: The suction that you're using to clear the nose can irritate the tiny respiratory lining, and the irritated lining can respond by making more secretions.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now the baby sounds congested, you suction, the nose gets irritated, more secretions show up, and pretty soon you're chasing your own tail.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Roma Francia.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've cared for tens of thousands of newborns over more than 30 years, and here's a much gentler way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I usually start.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But before you can get to that, we have to answer this question first.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Does your baby actually have a blocked nose, or do they just sound like they do?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because those two can look very different.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: This happens all the time.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You bring this beautiful little baby home from the hospital, and for the first week or two, everything sounds pretty quiet.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then somewhere around two or three weeks, you start hearing the snorting, the stuffiness, and maybe a little rattle that seems like it's coming from way down in the chest.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, your first thought is my baby is sick.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, where your baby just came from, they have spent months surrounded by fluid inside your tummy.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this respiratory system starts, and by breathing in the air, there's tiny particles floating around, and we can't see with our eyes.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But when the baby breathes in these little particles, it tickles the inside of the nose, and the baby sneezes, and the nose starts making secretion.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's normal.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And because your baby's nose and throat are so tiny, a little bit of secretion can make a surprisingly big sound.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It can resonate through the nose, here in the back of the nose and throat, down to the chest.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're listening to the baby thinking there is mucus somewhere, maybe, and but maybe not, clearly as much as it sounds like, and this is where I tell parents something that I want you to remember.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Before you listen to your baby, look at your baby.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: When a parent brings me a baby and says, Dr.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Roma, listen to this.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening, but I'm also watching.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see the baby's nostrils.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Are they sitting there comfortably?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or are they flaring in and out with every breath?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see the baby's color.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Does the baby look pink?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is the baby comfortable?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I watch the breathing itself.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Does the chest and belly move easily?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Does it look like this baby is really having a hard time trying to breathe?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And probably the biggest practical question is can the baby eat?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because newborns need that nose while they're sucking, so if the baby sounds incredibly congested, but they're lying there pink comfortably, eating beautifully, breathing easy, and the nostrils are not flaring, I'm usually much less impressed by the noise that mom and dad are bringing in out of concern.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand why.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never had a newborn before, those noises at two in the morning are awful.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're lying there thinking, do I wake someone up?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do I suction?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is this child breathing?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is everything okay?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the sound is not always telling you what you think it is.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that matters because what a lot of parents do next can actually keep the whole thing going.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the instinct.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: You hear mucus, so you want it out.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Makes total sense.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: You grab the bulb or whatever suction device you have and you start clearing the nose.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the inside of the newborn's nose is delicate.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep irritating that respiratory lining with the suctioning device, the lining responds the way irritated tissue often responds.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It makes more secretions.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're creating this little loop where the baby sounds congested, so you suction, then the lining is irritated, so the baby makes more secretions.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now the baby sounds congested again, and you think I didn't get enough out, so you suction again.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see how this goes.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I don't feel compelled to clear every nose I hear.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: If there is actually mucus sitting in the nostril and blocking the baby from breathing or eating comfortably, yes, that's different.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a baby who is comfortable and just sounds like a little bulldog.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would much rather help those secretions move along naturally down into the stomach.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I use what I call Dr.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Roma's secretion solution.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite first step is warmth and humidity, and I do mean a warm humidity.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I like a warm humidifier positioned safely near the baby, grabs those secretions and slides it into the stomach.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about that standing in a warm shower when your own nose is stuffed up.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The warm moisture helps loosen and thin everything so that the sticky secretions can start moving down into the stomach.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here's another thing parents don't always realize the mucus does not have to come out of the nose, it can move toward the back of the nose and the baby swallows it, and we're done.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to see a trophy come out of the suction bulb to know that the nose is getting better.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I care about is that the baby can breathe comfortably and eat comfortably.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes the warm humidity does the whole job.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you still have these stubborn little secretions sitting right inside the nostril, and that's when I add the second part, my little slip and slide.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I take a tiny amount of Vaseline and I put it just inside each nostril, not way up inside, just inside.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not digging around in there, and then I gently pitch the sides of the nose together and call this my little slip and slide, because that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm giving those sticky secretions a little lubrication so that they can move instead of drying and sticking in the inside of the tiny nose.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Warm moisture loosens them, the little bit of Vaseline helps them slide, and then this is the part first-time parents are not always very good at.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I leave the baby alone for a minute.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do something every 30 seconds.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you help the body and then you let the body work.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll do that and then I go back to the same question.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I started with how does the baby look?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can they breathe?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Can they eat?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are they comfortable?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: If the answer is yes, then I'm perfectly happy to let the baby snort a little bit.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to make a newborn silent, I'm trying to make a newborn comfortable.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a new parent and this is helping you realize that some of these very dramatic newborn noises are actually much easier to understand once you know what to look for, subscribe.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what I want to do here.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give you the little practical things I've been teaching families in my office for decades.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you spend less time at 2 in the morning wondering whether every strange sound means something is wrong.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is absolutely a time when I want you to suction, and this is where the line gets very simple.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not anti-suction, I'm anti-suctioning a perfectly comfortable baby because the noise is making the adults nervous.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different things.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: If I can actually see mucus obstructing the nostril and the baby is struggling to move air through it, then gently suctioning makes sense.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: If the baby is trying to breastfeed or take the bottle and they keep pulling away because they can't comfortably breathe through their nose, then yes, I want that obstruction cleared.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is what suction is for.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: If your baby is pink, breathing comfortably, eating normally, and you are suctioning every hour because the snorting is driving you crazy.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask yourself one question.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Am I treating an obstruction or am I treating a noise?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's only the noise, you may be irritating the nose for no good reason.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there is one more thing that really throws parents off here.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hear this all the time.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Roma, it's not just the nose, I can hear it in the chest.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, sometimes it sounds that way.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: These secretions can collect in the back of the nose and throat, and because everything is tiny, that sound can resonate sometimes down through the whole chest, and it seems like rattling or vibratory.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it sounds much bigger than is necessarily is.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I come right back to the baby.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are the nostrils flaring?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is the baby pulling deeply around the neck or the abdomen each breath?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is feeding becoming difficult?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Does the color look wrong?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is the information I trust.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because a baby can make a huge amount of noise and be doing beautifully, and another baby can be much quieter but look like breathing is becoming work.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: The quieter baby worries me more.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part I really want parents to understand.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when do I stop being relaxed about this?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: When the baby starts looking like they are working to breathe, if the nostrils are widening with every breath, if you can see pulling around the neck or the abdomen when the baby's breathing, if the baby is becoming exhausted during feeds, or if the color around the lips and mouth look wrong.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm talking about a little bit more than a secretion problem.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is when I want you to call your pediatrician.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is why newborns confuse people so much.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Parents assume the loudest symptom must be the most important symptom.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: But newborns don't always work that way.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: The snorting may sound horrible and mean almost nothing.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I care about may be the little nostril flaring you barely notice.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the more you can learn to watch the baby instead of chasing the noise, the easier this gets.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, your baby is going to make secretions.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to sneeze, they are going to snort, they are going to make strange noises in the middle of the night that make you sit straight up in bed.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is part of having a newborn.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to personally remove every drop of mucus this child produces.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your baby has a respiratory system that is learning how to handle this brand new world.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: The secretions loosen, they move back, the baby swallows them, and the system keeps developing.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your job is not to make the nose perfect.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your job is to notice when the baby actually needs help.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And once you make that shift, you stop treating every sound like an emergency.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time your newborn suddenly sounds stuffed up, here's what I want you to do.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Before you grab the suction, look at the baby.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is the baby breathing comfortably?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: The nostrils are not flaring, the color looks good, and the feeding is going well.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So start gently.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Use a warm humidifier.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: If those secretions are sticky, use a bit of the Vaseline just inside the nostrils, and my little slip and slide will help them go down.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then give it a little time.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If the mucus is actually obstructing the nostril or interfering with feeding or breathing, that's when you bring in gentle suction.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not zero noise.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is a comfortable baby.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's one thing I want you to remember from this, it's that a newborn can sound much worse than they actually are.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So don't let your ears make the whole decision.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Watch the baby.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they are comfortable feeding well and breathing easily, a little snorting and rattling may just be that developing respiratory system doing what it does.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: If the breathing starts looking like work, feeding gets difficult, or the color changes, now the picture is different.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know the other newborn symptoms that can look almost normal, but I do not want you to brush off, watch my video next on the five newborn symptoms I always want parents to call about.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once you know what actually deserves your attention, you can relax a whole lot more about the stuff that only sounds scary.