According to Mosby's Medical Dictionary, a dropper is a glass or plastic tube that is narrow at one end, and has a rubber end at the other end that gets squeezed in order to dispense liquid medication. The medication gets dispensed one drop at a time. Droppers come in a variety of measurements and are used for a variety of reasons. There are eye droppers, ear droppers and droppers used to dispense medication to infants. This article will show you how to use droppers correctly.
Hold the dropper in a vertical position, and check to see if the dropper starts out empty. If the dropper was packaged separately, you may need to gently rinse it out a bit before use. If it was in the medication, be sure to squeeze any excess out of the dropper and into the bottle of medicine.
Gently squeeze the rubber end of the dropper, using your thumb and forefinger. This will squeeze excess air out of the dropper and prepare the dropper to suck up the medicine.
Place the dropper into the bottle. Stop squeezing the rubber end, but continue to fold onto the dropper. Lift the dropper up enough to see how much medicine is in your dropper.
Gently squeeze the rubber end until the medicine is leveled with the measurement you need.
Let go of the rubber end. This will cause an air bubble to pop up and look like the medicine is off measurement, but you have the correct amount in the dropper.