Do you know the dangers we expose to babies while feeding them? Well, some are longterm and dangerous to their lives! Avoid bottle-feeding a baby who is lying down because it causes ear infections, doctors have warned.
According to the doctors, this is a common habit, mostly at night, when the mothers or guardians are asleep.
“I’m concerned because of late, I’m seeing many children who are brought to the hospital with painful ear infections,” Walter Otieno, a paediatrician who practises in western Kenya, said. Some of his patients are only weeks old.
The Doctor who was speaking to a local daily on Thursday said that ear infection in under six-month-olds is mostly bottle-feeding or breastfeeding while lying down. The affected mothers have owned up to practising the unsafe habit.
Dr Otieno explained that babies have little openings from the back of their throats to their ears called Eustachian tubes, which are shorter, wider and flatter.
“When you feed your baby in a lying position, the liquid pools in the back of the mouth. The liquid can then go back up into the ears through the Eustachian tube, causing inflammation in the tube,” the doctor said.
“This is bad because bacteria can enter through the tube into the ear and cause an ear infection.”
Paediatric infectious disease specialist Joan Robinson says rarely do children have fluid draining from their ears. This fluid could contain germs hence causing infection.
“The best way to handle a baby while feeding is to carry her, feed her, then let the baby rest, it takes five minutes at most,” she says.
Another problem with ear infections in children is that most doctors treat them with antibiotics, which is unnecessary.
An updated statement by the Canadian Paediatric Society released last year recommended the use of a watchful waiting approach before launching antibiotic use for an ear infection.