Baby Saline – A Family Medicine Cabinet Essential
01. Dec, 2009 
3 Comments
Baby Saline – A Family Medicine Cabinet Essential
It’s funny the things that you simply can’t live without. Saline isn’t one of the things you coo over while shopping for baby supplies and it’s certainly not in the ranks of adorable or even colorful. Saline is a clear salt water solution used for loosing snot in baby’s nose. An unlikely candidate for a review, certainly, but in the lists of must-haves in our house, baby saline is near the top. In fact, I recall a few late night missions to retrieve a new container of baby saline solution during cold season.
Why Baby Saline?
Babies can’t blow their own noses. Even when toddlers try, they can’t force all of the congestion out of their sinus cavities and clear the passages of the nose the way a forceful adult nose blow can. Babies and even toddler rely on Mom to free them from the oppression of dried boogers. Without getting into too much detail, there are only so many ways you can get those dried yellow nasties out of there – suck ‘em, pick ‘em or flush ‘em.
Most parents are well versed in sucking out the boogers using a nasal aspirator or squeeze bulb, and most of us have done a bit of tissue-over-finger digging to get a few stubborn ones visible at the nostril’s surface. But it is the congestion deep in baby’s nasal cavities that makes sleeping at night difficult and causes the biggest problems with infections and lingering problems with runny noses. Saline solution, when applied correctly, can gently wash that congestion away. It has the side benefit of loosing any thick or dried boogies so that the nasal aspirator can truly do its job.
Buying Baby Saline
Saline nose drops and sprays are common place, but before buying the brand on sale, be sure that you are purchasing a mild saline drop designed for babies. Adult saline drops have been shown to be too harsh for sensitive noses and can become addictive as well. Baby brands are more like natural tears or water. The saline can be packaged as a small squeeze bottle that lets you drip a few drips into each stuffy nostril or it might be a spray nozzle used for releasing a mist into baby’s nose. We’ve used both in this house and both work just fine. The nose drops seem to be easier to handle, but the spray doesn’t make as much of a mess with excess.
Problems with Saline
Not every runny nose needs a saline treatment. Use saline sparingly, even if it is safe and non-addictive. The best time to use the saline might be at bedtime after a warm-bath when congestion is already loosened a bit. Saline will clear the sinus cavities completely and let baby rest a bit more peacefully at night.
Baby saline is available at drug stores and other retailers and starts around $2 per small bottle.
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Most of the Salines contain preservatives which are irrigative and may create sensitization.
I recommend the Cleanoz Saline (www.drugstore.com), preservative free in single use containers more hygienic than the big saline bottles that you keep for weeks….
For multiples you can use a different applicator for each baby and save money. Also you can keep the remaining containers for the next cold….
Thanks for the post. I haven’t needed to use this stuff yet, but I use a neti pot for myself during the dryest of the dry seasons. It gets quite dry here in Colorado.
I may have to try this for our baby when we get into the heart of winter. We have used just a light spritz of the baby nose drops to loosen things up and suck out with a bulb, both of which caused hysteria for our baby last winter. Hopefully it will get better as time goes on.
Saline is great but works even better together with a Nosefrida aspirator, this is a manual suction device where you use your lungpower to get the mucus out… so easy and it really works.