Cord care: alcohol or no?

swirl25 · December 2013

In the hospital the nurses said no alcohol, just swab the base with a q-tip 3x daily. However, at the pedi he told us to use alcohol on it. At first I was doing the nurses recommendation but I noticed today it has a slightly unpleasant smell. Pedi looked at it at her weight check today and said it isn't infected or anything, but if you don't pull the cord up and clean well with the alcohol it will mat down and get smelly. So, alcohol it is. I'm just curious to know what others were told to do? I used alcohol on DD1's cord and that seemed to be the universal reco then...wondering what changed in 3 yrs.

musicnmoon123 · December 2013

Our pedi said do nothing.

kimvpthompson · December 2013

Our doc said no alcohol!

19goingon30 · December 2013

I was told to clean with alcohol.

jax63081 · December 2013

We were told to use alcohol 3x a day. The hospital sent us home with swabs to use.

sportsmomma · December 2013

Was told it didn't matter either way so we didn't do anything.

iranwithscissors · December 2013

We were told to do nothing except make sure it stays dry.

aundrea1225 · December 2013

I was told alcohol only once a day. It fell off pretty quickly too. I don't think it can do any harm.

nofcksgiven · December 2013

At first we were told not to. Then we were told by a different nurse that we should. We asked our pedi and she said it didn't really matter either way. It wasn't going to hurt, but it probably wasn't going to help either.

We did it when we thought about it. Maybe once a day, most of the time less.

KFED103 · December 2013

We left it alone until it fell off. I think I put alcohol on it once after just to see if it would help it dry.

lollipoppoop · December 2013

My doctor/nurses told me to do nothing. It's been a week and the cord looks good

swirl25 · December 2013

Yeah, I was thinking a little alcohol on a q-tip 1x a day and then just swab with a dry q-tip the other times...kind of a happy medium.

haliepell · December 2013

With dd I didn't do anything and she had to get it courdorized twice bc it didn't heal right and ds I used alcohol swabs and it looks great

manausmom · December 2013

Here in brazil, every doctor recomends alcohol. We used it on our baby and it was great!

mkhim · December 2013

I've been told that it doesn't really make a difference. My pedi said to use alcohol but one of my nurses said that it's just because we have a hard time letting things just be and keeping it dry is the important thing.

Chichigo · December 2013

Our pedi recommended against it but said it wouldnt hurt if we chose to use alcohol.

Mrbatesisinnocent · December 2013

We were told just keep it dry. It fell off just fine.

MommyEllenSue · December 2013

We were told to just leave it alone and keep it dry. It fell off at 9 days and was completely healed by 2 weeks.

Ansleyturner · December 2013

We were told to use alcohol at every diaper change. We did when we thought about it. LOs started to stink as well so we had to go to the pedi to check for infection. It was fine but they told us to move it around to clean it. It fell off shortly after.

KelseyKetchum · December 2013

I was told to run a little water on it and dry if need be but I'm opting to let it be and they said at his check up today it looks great!

hjweber · December 2013

We didn't use alcohol with DD#1 or DD#2. We were just told to keep it dry and after bath to let it air dry before snapping a onesie over it or anything. I noticed a smell when it fell off but it's healing nicely. No worries here.

kaiteygrl · December 2013

As a nurse in the hospital, we always swabbed with alcohol. But now with LO our pedi recommended not to, stating in her experience the alcohol dries the cord too much and it will fall off prematurely. She's seen more complications that way. We didn't use alcohol and it fell off during our two week check up. She did have a small granuloma that's healed now.

abbief584 · December 2013

We were told to do nothing.

eisma · December 2013

Loolaide said:
We were told just to keep it dry with both sons.

This!

backoffunicorn · December 2013

We were told to do nothing. It fell off on its own.

lp0 · December 2013

jayne1024 said:
We were told to do nothing except make sure it stays dry.

This!

sbrazzle · December 2013

I was told nothing too. Like two weeks after lo was born he took a huge crap and it got on his dried up cord. I tried to just wip it off but it was not working. My husband put some peroxide ( my husband solution to everything) on it and it bubbled up on side and fell off. I was a little worried if it was okay but it looks great.

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