If suddenly your baby wakes up with eyes full of gums, calm down! It is not serious, but you must take special care to avoid complications.
Legañas are formed by the accumulation in the tear duct of the most solid substances in tears such as fat and salts. The longer the closed eye spends, the less water it loses and the more secretions it accumulates.
That is why it is normal to wake up in the morning with legañas, in the case of babies, this problem multiplies because they spend more time asleep and their tear ducts have not yet finished developing and they have the most sensitive conjunctivae.
Do not be alarmed!
If your child wakes up every day with legañas, you should not worry. To clean them, apply a few drops of saline to each eye, wait for them to soften and with the tip of a sterile gauze remove them from the tear down. It is important that you use gauze for each eye. Thus, if you have an infection in one, you will avoid infecting the other. Avoid using cotton instead of gauze, since it loosens hairs and can irritate your baby’s eyes.
On the other hand, if your baby presents legacies, not only when he wakes up, his eyes cry or he is frequently irritated, his eyelids are swollen, he shows signs of being uncomfortable and there is a slight swelling between the nose and the lower part of the eye, immediately go to the pediatrician to rule out having a blocked tear or conjunctivitis. In both cases, your doctor is the one to determine the most appropriate treatment for your baby.