Tips About Little Baby: Keeping the Umbilical Cord Stump Clean

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Becoming a mother is the happiest thing that can happen in any woman's life. As a mother, you need to give your baby the best of care, love and attention. Your days will be full of caring for your newborn.

And, if you are a new mother or mom-to-be, you need to know certain thing in caring your baby. And, if you have no idea how to treat the cord stump of your baby, you will find a solution here. Bad treatment to the cord stump has greater possibly to cause infection.

HEALING UMBILICAL CORD (Birth-1 Month)

What is happening inside my baby’s body?

The umbilical cord is the connection between the placenta – the provider of nutrition to the growing fetus – and your baby. As soon as a baby is delivered, the cord is cut and the baby no longer receives oxygen and nutrition from her mother’s blood supply. A clamp is placed on the cord to stop it from bleeding, and in some hospitals, the stump is washed with an antibacterial liquid.

From then on, the cord slowly rots off. It changes from yellow to brown to black. After several days (sometimes weeks) the stump detaches itself from the skin and leaves behind a goopy button. Over the next few days (or weeks) the area becomes scabbed, and eventually the belly button heals entirely. The belly button is considered completely healed when the scab comes off and the skin underneath looks normal and completely healed.

How to take care of the umbilical cord stump?

When a baby is born, the umbilical cord stump is yellowish green in color. As days pass by, the cord changes its color from yellowish green to black within 15 days from the birth, the stump dries off and falls away. The umbilical cord stump needs to be taken care of during this transitive period of 15 days. So, here are few tips on how to do that:

• Keep the stumps dry – Wet umbilical stump are ideal breeding grounds for microbes. Young, new born babies do not have the immunity to fight against the microbes. Therefore, it is extremely important that the umbilical cord stumps in the new born babies are kept dry till they fall off.

• Clean the stump – In older days, doctors use to recommend cleaning the umbilical cord stumps with the help of alcohol. However, one can also wash the stump to remove the dirt and stickiness of the stump. Please note: never to try and remove the stump from the new born baby's body.

• Sponge bath for the newborn baby – After the stump falls of the body of the newborn baby, one can apply sponge bath to the baby to clean the navel area. This is a good practice for facilitating the healing process.

• Take medicine assistance whenever needed – There may be cases of complications with the umbilical cord stump. Some of the complications are

1. The stump is reddish in color and appears swollen.

2. The stump continues to bleed.

3. The stump leaks yellowish pus.

4. The stump produces a discharge that smells bad.

In all such cases, individuals are advised to visit their baby’s doctor as all these are signs of umbilical cord infections.