Guidelines for mothers regarding the nose, the ear, and the larynx

* A mother must place her baby during breast-feeding in a slanting position, so that his head would be higher than his body not in a horizontal position such as suckling him while he is asleep beside her as many mothers do so that milk would not leak into his middle ear causing an infection.

* Often a baby is infected by severe fever, vomit, and diarrhea and the case is mistakenly diagnosed as enteritis. However, the mother is observant and may notice frequent pulling of the child to his ear which indicates the real reason for his sickness which most probably an inflammation in the middle ear then a mother must hurry to see a doctor.

* If a mother notices the fall of purulent fluid from the ear which is different from the natural yellow or brown excretion, she has to prevent the entry of water into the ear when she bathes the baby by placing a piece of cotton full of oil or Vaseline in his ear until the baby is cured.

* When the baby is infected by nasal bleeding, a mother should not become disturbed because in many cases the matter is simple and does not require much worry, but she should make the baby sit lowering his face downward (like the position of Tashahhud in Salah) and should not make him sleep on his back as some mothers do. Then she should place a piece of cotton in the nostril from which the blood flows and press gently on the nose from outside for 3 or 5 minutes until bleeding stops, and there is no harm to use cold packs on his head.

* Many children insert some strange objects into their ears or noses, or even swallow these things which require some care from the mother as follows:

1- As for the nose, often a grain of bean or a piece of rubber comes in, and in this case, the mother should put a little bit of chili before the nose of her baby until he is about to sneeze, she should press the other nostril letting the strange object to go off the nose with the air current.

2- As for objects which a baby swallows such as a coin, a mother should hasten to turn the baby upside down and hit him gently at his back causing the object to go off the body.

3- As for placing strange objects in the ear, if a mother fails to take these objects out, she has to see a doctor and should not try to get them out herself because she would probably push them inside.

* Some children may be born with natural defects that require medial surgery. We should draw mothers' attention to the importance of starting the remedy immediately and we should draw some lights on the common diseases and their impacts on the baby's health:

1- Harelip: A surgery is operated in the third month of birth to fix it but if it is accompanied by a cleft in the palate, it should be fixed in the eighth month so that a child would be able to speak properly. Until the cure of that defect, a baby must suckle using a dropper.

2- Hard hearing: A serious problem which a mother has to discover early so as not to affect the speech of the child. There are some causes to this problem which a mother can help discover them or at least expect them, such as endogamous marriage, long duration of childbirth, using metal clamp, turning the color of the baby into blue, cerebrospinal meningitis or yellow fever, or using some antibiotics such as Garamycin for a long time.

If a mother is sure or in doubt that he baby suffers from hard hearing, she has to see a doctor to treat him either medically or surgically. A mother should not be shy that her child uses earpiece because it is like glasses that magnifies sounds and voices because it is the creation of Allah. No doubt that the child who hears even by using earpiece is better than the one who does not hear.

A final advice: Every mother can protect her children from many nasal troubles if they abide by the Islamic guidance regarding ablution by rinsing the nose five times a day which can help in expelling the germs and dust from the nose.