fleas on newborn kittens, help!!!!!!

My cat just have birth today to 5 beautiful kittens. During her pregnancy, my cat had a few fleas on her. I was afraid to treat her for them because she was pregnant and I didn't want to risk causing her harm, also I had only found a few and didn't think it was severe. The kittens are only a day old and I can see fleas on them! I'm so worried and have no idea what to do to help get rid of them without causing them harm. I've been researching on what to do and am at a loss, there are so many suggestions and recommendations. Has anyone else had this problem?? Anyone know what I should do?

Safest is to try and take them manually.  Pick up with your fingers.  Or comb them out and drown the fleas in water with soap in.   Both mom and kittens.

The problem is,  if you had mom with fleas (even if it was no big invasion),you do apparently have them also on kittens AND on nest.

So you have lotsa of work to do now, as you didnt  it earlier.   Comb, comb, comb, drown the fleas.   Change the bedding several times...

Do weight also the kittens every day at the same time, easiest with an electronical kitchen scale measuring in grammes.  You see if they gain properly - about 10+ a day, or not...    Having fleas on them they probably wont go up as they should.

If mom gets a dewormer with suitable dosage, it will give somewhat protection to kittens too.  So for example, I know Revolution has especial bottles for nursing queens...   Advantage II is too one of the safest, as I understand it.

But if you didnt dare earlier, I suppose you wont dare now either.

So what is left, is to take it manually.   When the kittens are somewhat bigger, you can bathe them with some soap water.  (taking all precautions of course so they wont get cold).    Most dont recommend bath for so small kittens.  But if it fully possible to eliminate them by having their lower parts in running warm water, it is apparently also possible to bathe them, if you are careful enough.

Good luck!   @keeganlovescats

I had the same problem last year, ours were 4 days old when we first noticed the fleas. 

   We ended up treating the mom with advantage (the kind where you put the liquid on the back of the neck). It gives the kittens some protection (because the fleas will go from one cat to the other) and it is safe for nursing queens. Frontline II is also safe for nursing queens I think (you can call the number on their websites to be sure).  We washed the kittens once a day until we stopped getting fleas off them. We used blue Dawn dish washing soap mixed with warm water in a bowl to wash them, a flea comb to remove fleas, the kitchen sprayer to rinse the kitties, and a heated rice sock and space heater in a small room to keep them warm while they dried. They all stayed in that one room so it was easy to clean it; we mopped with lysol every other day and made sure to do a really good job of it every few times ( hands and knees scrubbing). We also changed their bedding twice a day and cleaned it with hot water. Once the kittens get big enough to treat it will get a lot easier! Just be careful- dawn is strong enough that it will take the flea medication right off a cat... so don't wash them with dawn after you treat them.

You are going to go through a lot of lysol, laundry detergent, and dawn soap, but it did the trick for us

How old were the kittens when you first washed then with can dawn? I've been combing them and drowning the fleas for the past two days to get rid of as many as possible. I have changed their bedding everyday and will continue with that. I am also going to get advantage today after hearing that it really does help. Just can't wait till the kittens are old enough to treat with medicine! I hate fleas!

They were 4 or 5 days old the first time we washed them... they were pretty helpless so it was really easy. When we washed them we put them all in a big mixing bowl with a towel... they would just pile up and sleep. We left mom in the cat room with the heater on to get the room warmed up. Then we would change the bedding and clean the floor (if we were doing it that day). Next we would was one kitten, towel it dry and return it to the cat room with the heated rice sock. Then we would wash the second, towel it dry, return to cat room. Repeat as needed  .  It got harder as they got bigger because they could 'fight back' better, but it wasn't that bad because they were used to it. 

If I recall correctly we cleaned them daily for almost a month and a half (My husband and I were away for two weeks during that period for our honeymoon, my brother stayed at our house and cared for them while we were gone). After the month and a half ( or maybe it was two months) they had reached the weight were we could treat them. 

Do you have any pictures of the new family?

I used "Natural Flea Spray for Cats" by Natural Chemistry on mine but didn't notice anything as my lot don't seem to have fleas, even though they scratch themselves. Some people say it only kills the fleas not the eggs but I would imagine the immediate danger is the adults as I read somewhere that fleas on kittens can cause anaemia.

Can also back up the Dawn thing although I've not yet tried that as we are lucky and seem to have avoided flea problems in this area.

I can also recommend those flea zapper combs although not sure whether you would need to check up on whether they are safe for babies. Cannot imagine why they would not be but always better safe than sorry with little ones.

Hope you can get rid of the little pests.