My toddler (turns 2 next week) had surgery for inguinal hernias when he was almost three months old. The surgeon "fixed" both of them (not sure the correct term). Everything went smoothly and I haven't thought about it in a long time. Tonight when I was changing his diaper I noticed a bulge (kind of round protrusion about the size of a pencil eraser) in his lower right abdomen just above the thigh. Could this be from the stitches from the previous surgery or can hernias recur? When I pushed on it, he did not seem to notice so I don't think he's feeling any pain there.

This could be a number of things, and without checking him, we would be unable to give you an opinion. Your best option would be to have your son’s pediatrician take a look to determine if the protrusion you are feeling is a lymph gland in the groin , scar tissue from the surgery, something unrelated to the hernia ,or a retained stitch from the surgery. We doubt that it is a recurrence of the hernia.

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