Some parents find that sometimes the baby's tongue will have a layer of white tongue coating. Is this food accumulation? Do you want to take some medicine to help digestion?
Tongue coating in traditional Chinese medicine is often considered to be caused by steaming of spleen and stomach and turbid qi in the stomach. Traditional Chinese medicine usually judges human health according to the texture, shape and color of tongue coating. Tongue coating is composed of exfoliated keratinized epithelium, saliva, bacteria, food scraps and oozing leukocytes, and its formation is closely related to the division-proliferation-differentiation-migration-shedding of epithelial cells of tongue mucosa. In general, everyone will have different degrees of tongue coating.
Under normal circumstances, the tongue coating of normal people is thin, white and moist, and its degree is also related to chewing function, tongue stirring function and salivary gland development maturity. When eating less or only soft food, chewing and tongue movement are reduced, or saliva secretion is reduced, and tongue coating will become thicker. The baby's salivary glands are not yet mature, and the chewing function and tongue stirring function are not perfect. The food source is milk. If you don't pay attention to the cleanliness of your mouth after breastfeeding, a slightly thicker tongue coating may appear.
For this kind of tongue coating, what parents need to do is to pay attention to the cleanliness of the baby's mouth after each feeding. After the baby starts to add complementary food at the age of 6 months, pay attention to the food characteristics of complementary food to match the baby's age, so as to exercise its chewing and swallowing functions and drink a little water properly.
So, when does the baby's tongue coating need attention? If the baby's tongue coating is covered with a layer of white or yellow tongue coating, and there are other symptoms related to tongue coating, such as gastrointestinal dysfunction and poor spleen and stomach, it is necessary to judge what the baby's tongue coating represents through professional Chinese medicine.
For example, if the baby's appetite gets worse, you can see a thick layer of yellow and white dirt on the small tongue. The tongue coating is sticky and thick, and it is not easy to scrape off. Breathing is also sour, and the quality of sleep at night is not good, and the baby can't sleep well over and over again. Then, this suggests that the baby may eat too much at ordinary times, or eat too much greasy food, which leads to poor digestive function of the spleen and stomach and food accumulation.
For this kind of children, the conditioning principle of Chinese medicine is "if children are safe, they should always be hungry and cold". It is best to eat regularly and quantitatively, and don't force feed, so as not to aggravate anorexia and food accumulation. The food you choose should be light and easy to digest, eat less or even no fried puffed food, and try not to eat too much before going to bed at night. During the period of food accumulation, you can also use some massage methods to help strengthen the spleen and stomach. In addition, there are some patients with asthma, chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis, and their tongue coating may be thick and white or greasy because of dampness or phlegm.
In short, when the baby has tongue coating, don't take it for granted that it is food accumulation or excessive internal heat. You can consult a professional Chinese medicine doctor first, and then treat the symptoms. # Medical Union Media Super Group # # Breeze Project #
(Correspondent: Lin of Guangdong Maternal and Child Health Hospital)