I think 4 week old has conjunctivitis - what to do?

[Bevziibubble]

My older child has conjunctivitis which she is on eye drops for and I think my 4 week old baby has now caught it. In the night I noticed one of his eyes has yellow gunk coming out of it and yellow crust around it. Is there anything I can do apart from bathing it in breast milk?
It's the weekend so the doctors are not open. Do I need to take him to a walk in centre? Last time we were there the wait was 5 hours and I don't want to wait that long for them just to tell me he's too young for them to prescribe anything like eye drops?

 

[iiTTCii]

Oscar had conjunctivitis a few weeks ago. You can go to the pharmacy and they will give you some drops. Ours doctors has a list of of reasons to see the pharmacist rather than the GP and conjunctivitis is one of them. Oscars cleared up within a few days once starting the drops.

I used cotton wool and cooled boiled water to wipe his eyes every few hours.

 

[Bevziibubble]

Oh that is good, definitely better than sitting in out of hours all day. His eye doesn't look too bad now I have bathed it, but we will go to the pharmacy and hopefully they will give him some eye drops. Thank you

 

[Bevziibubble]

On second thoughts we are going to take him to the walk in centre as he's quite chesty as well with his cough so want to check he's not got a chest infection

 

[LoraLoo]

Drs will always want to see a neonate with conjunctivitis hun.

 

[Lil mole]

Ring 111 or gp out of hours (depends on your area who you call) they can make an appointment to see the gp at the walk in centre so you don't have to sit about in the waiting room.

 

[donnarobinson]

I was going to suggest 111 they do book appointments For you so shouldn't be there as long X.

 

[Bevziibubble]

Been to the walk in centre now and I'm so impressed how quickly we were seen this time. His chest is clear which is good. He has conjunctivitis though so we've been given some ointment to use every two hours in his eyes for the first 48 hours.

 

[minties]

So glad he's ok and you got seen to fast! I would have called my midwife as they see baby for the first 6 weeks here.

Thomas had conjunctivitis at 5 days old and it cleared very quickly with eye drops.

 

[iiTTCii]

Glad you've got it sorted.