Thrush!!

Sara Gray has thrush—yikes!!  We knew that she wasn’t feeling well the last part of last week-just sleeping a bit more (which we had no complaints about) and being more lethargic. Her little cry was getting raspy and Friday night when I got home from the rehearsal dinner she had that pitiful glazed look in her eyes that just said “I don’t feel good.”  She has really wanted to be closer to more and I’ve of course held her as much as could.  With the wedding, things were a bit crazy and I feel so guilty that I didn’t examine her more closely.  I really figured she may have been trying to get a cold and with the change in the weather that made sense. Well, Monday morning Frances and I talked about keeping an eye on her, keeping her indoors and wrapped up good.  Later that morning Frances confirmed that something was wrong after all, the poor baby has thrush!

I immediately called the doc’s phone nurse and left a message. I was so upset and felt so horrible!!  I came home at lunch to check on her and sure enough, there was white bumps in the crease on both sides of her mouth and on her lips.

For those of you that aren’t familiar, thrush is a yeast infection in the mouth resulting in white pockets and spots along the inside of the cheek and along the lips and tongue. Its fairly common in infants around 2 months and can result from a wide variety of things, everything from childbirth to sucking on a bottle or pacifier to long or picking up some sort of germs in her mouth. As a nursing mother, I was particularly concerned because either I gave it to her and she has given it to me. So I need to be treated as well (thanks Laura for your “dip yourself in some yogurt” prescription!)

Sara Gray is on medicine now and she seems to be doing well.  Although she definitely has had some tell-tale signs that was something was not quite right, she has continued to be her happy self for the most part.

Here’s some pictures we took Sunday night, not even realizing we were taking pictures of thrush, just trying to get her to smile. As you can see, the white spots were starting to develop on the inside of her lips. How did I not see this??!!  Matt & I both had thoughts about her white tongues (we thought it was residual milk) and her lips (we thought maybe they were starting to get chapped) but we never verbalized them to each other.  I thought we were supposed to be smarter the second time around…I guess not so much!!

If there has been a good thing that has come, Campbell has decided she doesn’t want any nasty germs in her mouth so she is really brushing her teeth better, even using extra toothpaste!