My LO is 18 days old and her cord stump is starting to smell bad. It`s been kept dry except for cleaning with a q-tip and water which was done at every diaper change. There are no signs of infection, no redness, swelling or heat, no pus and only a tiny bit of discharge. It doesn`t have an infection type of odor, it just...smells funky. Do you/did you only use water to clean your lo`s stump or did you use rubbing alcohol? Is there any reason NOT to use it? I know they say your don`t need to use it, but will it hurt her or slow down the healing if I do use it? (Baby poll by loribb, 858 days ago)
I just used water and it cleaned it just fine.
15
31%
I used rubbing alcohol and it healed fine.
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68%
I used water and it got infected.
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I used alcohol and it didn't heal properly.
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Votes: 47
Comments: 5
kylaleigh (857.6 days ago) my son`s cord had a FUNKY smell too.. I took him to the doc and they showed me how to get DOWN on the cleaning and get all in there.. a week later it fell off and that smell went away... but we used alcohol.
angie2008 (857.7 days ago) my dd didn`t fall off until she was almost 1 month old. We didn`t use any alcohol or water, actually never heard of using water on it. I would say call your doc because of the smell. my dd did have some puss/ goop when it came off which is completely normal.
madelynnsmom (857.8 days ago) I used rubbing alchol on my daughters. Hers didnt fall off until she was a month old but it never smelled bad.
rosye13 (858 days ago) They told us when we first left the hospital not to use the rubbing alcohol. Then at about 2 weeks her stump started to smell soooo bad! It was awful. So we called and they told us to go ahead and use the rubbing alcohol ( I have no idea why they say not to initially). Anyway, we did and it fell off in a couple of days and healed fine.
mikey and cjs mommy (858 days ago) at 18days it most likely should have fallen off by now. i think my son`s fell out shortly after 2 weeks if not right about then. we used the rubbing alcohol. i think you can try it. it doesnt do anything but dry it out, where the water keeps it moist. if you dry it out with the alcohol, i have it feeling it will be out in a day or two. good luck!