White patches on your baby’s tongue? Should you clean it?

You may notice white milk patches on the baby’s tongue, especially after a feed. You wonder whether you should clean it, and if so how do you go about it?

The tongue is a virtual playground for a large number of bacteria in the mouth! It is a perfect hide-out! Lots of nooks, crannies and crevices to hide under, plentiful food to help the bacteria multiply, and a difficult to clean surface, makes the tongue home to almost 50% of the bacteria that are present in the mouth.

You should certainly do your best to clean the tongue of your infant, especially if the tongue appears white.

Procedure for cleaning your infant’s tongue

1. First, clean your own hands with soap and water – you certainly don’t want to infect your own child.
2. Take warm water in a bowl.
3. Keep a soft cloth or gauze handy.
4. Wrap the cloth around the index finger of your dominant hand.
5. Place the index finger of your own hand in between the lips of the child. The natural tendency of the baby is to open the mouth wider. Some babies of course, will do just the opposite. If too stubborn, you may have to postpone it to another time.
6. Now slip in the cloth covered index finder and with circular motions, gently clean the surface of the tongue.
7. While you are at it, do remember to massage and clean the gums too!
8. You can do this twice a day at least, and your baby will be on his way to great oral hygiene, well before the eruption of the first tooth!

Read about how to take care of your infant’s newly erupted teeth.

Doctor, I tried removing the white patch on my baby’s tongue. It comes out only with great difficulty and the surface looks so red, and ready to bleed. Am I doing something wrong?

Your child may be having oral thrush! You do need to take your child to her pediatrician, who will confirm the diagnosis and prescribe the appropriate medication.

Other indications to see your pediatrician:

• Thick, flaky milky residue has accumulated on the tongue and that is difficult to clean.
• Your child just will not cooperate and open her mouth, and you see milk residue build-up

Care of the tongue in the older child

The same principles apply (outlined above) as to the need for cleaning the tongue.  You have more options in older children to help get his tongue squeaky clean.

1. Use specially designed stainless steel tongue cleaners – they come in different shapes, most commonly, inverted U shaped.
2. You can use a stainless steel spoon to scrape the tongue.
3. The back of the head of the toothbrush will serve in a pinch. Many of the modern toothbrushes have a rough surface at the back of the head.

In any case, clean by moving the cleaner from back to front. Do not forget to clean the sides of the tongue too.

If you have liked this article, do remember to share this on social media below, for other people to benefit.

Do like us on Facebook, if you would like notifications to reach your news feed, whenever we put up a new post.