Why do children shed tears?

The healthy growth of children is what parents care about most. Once there is any abnormality in the child, it will attract the attention of parents. It is normal to shed tears. Children will shed tears when they cry. But if a child sheds tears frequently, it is necessary to consider that it may be caused by illness. It is important to find out the reason. So, why do children shed tears? Let’s take a closer look below.

Neonatal dacryocystitis. It is the most common cause of tears in children, with an incidence rate of about 5%-6% in newborns, and it is more common in one eye. This is mainly because the lower end of the nasolacrimal duct has not fully developed for a period of time after the child is born, and is blocked by a layer of residual membrane, causing tear duct obstruction, and secondary bacterial infection, resulting in tearing and pus discharge. A simple way to judge is to press the skin at the corner of the eye with your fingers, and you can see yellow-white pus flowing out of the corner of the eye. If it is an acute inflammation, the skin at the corner of the eye will be red and swollen, and there will be subcutaneous lumps, and the child will cry and be restless because of the pain. In terms of treatment, the main focus is to massage the skin slightly below the canthus (tear sac area) to promote the opening of the lower opening of the nasolacrimal duct, and use antibiotic eye drops (such as Tobrex eye drops) in the eyes. Most children can be cured. If the above treatment is ineffective, the tear duct irrigation and probing treatment will be used under general anesthesia.

Congenital atresia of the lacrimal puncta and lacrimal canaliculi or absence of the lacrimal puncta and lacrimal canaliculi. This is a relatively rare congenital abnormality of the tear duct, but the symptoms of tearing are relatively severe, and the tears continue after birth. Fortunately, it is generally not complicated by bacterial infection, so there is no pus discharge. A simple way to differentiate it from neonatal dacryocystitis is that no pus flows out when pressing the canthus of the eye. Careful parents may find that in healthy eyes, at the junction of the skin and the red mucous membrane about 3 mm away from the greater corner of the eye, there is a small protrusion on both the upper and lower eyelids, and a small hole can be seen in the center of the small protrusion. This small hole is the tear punctum. Children with this eye disease do not have these two small holes, or the holes are not open. Such patients need surgery to solve the tearing problem.

Other reasons. Conjunctivitis, keratitis, blepharitis, lacrimal gland inflammation, congenital glaucoma, etc. can also cause children to cry. For tearing caused by these reasons, the primary disease is generally obvious and easy to identify. The treatment is mainly targeted at the primary disease. Generally, the tearing symptoms will disappear after the primary disease is cured.