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You know that little blue bulb.  Often referred to as a Hospital Aspirator – which bestows upon it an entirely undeserved status of safety and efficacy. You probably have a couple of them in your drawers at home.  But did you know that this device is not only much less effective than human suction type aspirators but can actually cause more harm than good? Please read on…

1)  Bulb syringe aspirators that do not open for easy cleaning are ideal breeding grounds for bacteria and virus. The little blue bulbs given out in hospitals are meant to be DISPOSABLE (as is everything in hospitals) – but let’s be honest, you still have that bulb in your kitchen or bathroom drawer, don’t you? Think about it. You have just sucked snot out of your child’s nose with the blue bulb and then kind of rinsed it out under water – maybe you actually try to wash it out with soap. Still when you are done, you have a soup of water and virus laden mucus in a dark & moist place – the inside of the aspirator. And then you squirt this effluent back into your child’s nose later, or worse, an unsuspecting sibling.

2) A bulb syringe only has as much suction as the volume of the bulb. In other words, not very much. The result is that you have to squeeze and insert the bulb several times to successfully remove any mucus. With a squirming child, this is very difficult and inefficient. And a source of misery for parents and children.

3) The blue bulb syringe they send you home from the hospital with is actually designed as an ear irrigation bulb, so the tip is too small for noses – even for new born noses – and can accidentally be inserted too deeply and harm your baby.

It is amazing to us that the hospitals are still sending us home with these unfortunate devices to treat baby colds and runny noses. Bulb aspirators available in drugstores, while slightly better are still generally unsatisfactory because they simply do not generate much suction.

While battery-powered aspirators do generate consistent suction, these devices also do not generate sufficient suction to really be effective in removing upper sinus mucus.  As a rule of thumb, always look for an aspirator that fully disassembles and can be put into the dishwasher – and will withstand the high temperatures of the sanitize cycle.