marisuela

Thanks for the response and support, Casey. I have 4 girls as well, plus I've worked with infants for years, and I've never heard of such a thing! I'm not one to freak out about things, but this one did kind of freak me out!

SO, for such a "normal" and "fairly common" occurrence, nobody I know has ever heard of this! The doctor just said to put a thin "ribbon" of estrogen cream on the sealed up part once a day and wait for it to open. That did NOT sit well with me, because I am terrified of using hormones on my baby (cancer is HUGE in my family!). BUT, after much research on the subject, it appeared that the only treatment was to leave it alone and hope it opens up on it's own, surgery (which seems to be counterproductive, because there's a huge percentage of the adhesions coming back), or the estrogen cream. Because of how high the adhesions went (close to her urinary opening), I chose the estrogen option.

So we used make-up q-tips, with the pointy applicator to apply the cream ONLY to the line where the skin was fused. I made sure it was only on that line and didn't go anywhere else, and the line of cream was almost exactly the same width and length of the line where her skin was fused (thanks to the pointy applicator!). We used the cream first thing in the morning with that first diaper change. With every diaper after that, I applied vaseline to the area and up at her urinary opening, to prevent that from fusing as well.

After a lot of research, I decided that when I applied the vaseline, I would use the pointy applicator and very gently rub it onto the line where her skin was fused.... I applied just the tiniest bit of pressure as I was applying the vaseline, to work it into the fusion line.... the goal being to work through the line and separate the skin.... BUT only applying the TINIEST bit of pressure, to very SLOWLY separate the skin.... like over a period of several weeks! It took a good 4 weeks before I saw any change at all!

We used the estrogen cream every day for 2 weeks, then we dropped down to every other day, and then every few days.... that was about 4 weeks. The day we saw there was actual progress being made, we quit using the cream and just stuck with the vaseline regimen. After another week or so, we saw an actual opening, and then within a couple of days she was all opened up again!

My doctor never mentioned massaging vaseline into the fusion, or anything. She just said put a "ribbon" of estrogen cream on my baby daily. I think it's the massaging with vaseline that actually made the difference! It's something I will definitely be mentioning the next time I see her!

I wrote all this in case anyone else has to go through this, because it is such a bad feeling when you have NO idea what to do for your baby!!!!!