Return of the umbilical hernia

My singleton had a fairly sizable umbilical hernia after he was born, which went away between 2-3 months old. His pediatrician at the time had told me that they really don't do anything unless it's still there at 6 months old and at that point they would still just monitor it for awhile, possibly evaluate him for surgery, etc. So it went away and all was fine. Well now it's back. It's not as huge as it was, but it's still there. He has his 9 month check up on Wednesday so I am going to definitely bring it up then, but I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with it. Thanks!

 

This must be a regional thing. All three of my girls have umbilical hernias but here they leave them alone until age 5! So far only Mushka's looks like it may have closed but the other two are definitely alive and well It hasn't affected anything except that their belly buttons are a little hard to clean .

 

I think the old pediatrician said they wouldn't actually do surgery here until he was 2-3 years old, unless it was necessary earlier for some reason. No idea what the new pediatrician will say. Switching doctor's every time I turn around really stinks.

 

One of my girls looked like she had one when she was about 2-4mos but the doctor wasn't concerned and said they likely wouldn't do anything unless they were doing surgery for something else in the area. She's 2 now and they haven't ever mentioned anything and it looks fine.

 

The general rule is unless it's huge or causing problems they wait until child is much older to do anything about it. Almost all of them close once the child is walking and developing abdominal muscles (once that baby pot belly goes away). All the surgeons I've ever worked with wait until the child is 5 or 6.

 

He saw his NP yesterday, and she said what you guys have said. Just more 'wait and see' and keep an eye on it that it doesn't cause any discomfort, become hard or look inflamed. I was worried that it reappearing meant something tore or whatever.

Thank you ladies!