For weeks we fought against a seemingly invincible sort of trush (a yeast infection in the mouth). Our baby had a white tongue for some time. We both thought that it was because of all the milk the baby was drinking and because the baby rubs her tongue against the nipple while drinking milk. But my wife was getting doubts. She found that not all babies had a white film on the tongue. And even more important: our baby could protest very heavily when she had to be breastfed. Maybe she her tongue hurted every time she tried to drink.

Well, that's was our own conclusion. We then had the chance to ask some experts about the baby's tongue. We got some interesting answers ranging from extreme trush to just a benign white film of milk. Just pick and choose your preferred answer! The first two persons (a doctor and somebody from the baby and toddler clinic) didn't think it was trush. Our own doctor thought it would be trush and prescribed a medicine.

The medicine didn't do the job, so the doctor was convinced that it couldn't be trush. Not much later we had to go to the baby and toddler clinic, where they concluded that our baby had a serious yeast infection. So we tried another medicine and well, it didn't work either.

So at that time we were not sure what to think anymore. Every time our baby cried, we blamed the yeast infection, but we didn't know if that was true. We were already thinking that our baby would become the ideal baby after she got rid of her trush. So we let the doctor take a sample of her white tongue and let it culture in the laboratory. If the result of that survey is negative our baby doesn't have a yeast infection. Period.

We had to wait more than a week before the culture was developed long enough. And guess what? No yeast infection. So much for the experts. Again...

Labels: infection, medical, tongue, trush