Baby Eczema
If your baby suffers from eczema, you are not alone. A whopping 20% of babies suffer from Baby Eczema at some stage. The challenge is to be able to correctly identify eczema, eliminate or reduce the causes, and treat the stressful skin irritation.
How to Recognize Baby Eczema
Baby Eczema
Baby Eczema is an excessively irritable skin rash that typically has one or more of the following symptoms:
* your baby will rub or scratch continuously
* skin is dry and inflamed, sometimes with little raised lumps that look like pimples
* thickened or scaly skin
* skin cracks and sometimes “weeping” or crusting occurs
* typical distribution: the first areas are often found on your baby’s face and in the “creases” of the knees, elbows, behind the
ears or in the neck area
* sleepless nights – for baby and you! Your baby will be irritable and restless.
* poor weight gain in bad cases due to nutrients being used to continuously repair skin lesions.
Baby Eczema, though it looks bad, is in no way contagious or infectious.
What Causes Baby Eczema
Most Baby Eczema has no obvious cause. It is usually hereditary, so runs in families. Only a small percentage of Baby Eczema cases are caused by actual allergies. Their immune system reacts excessively to allergens in the environment. Breast fed babies are less likely to suffer from eczema as they get antibodies from their mother’s milk. Even breast fed babies can develop allergies to some things the mother eats.
Some of the common triggers of Baby Eczema follow:
* Soaps for washing baby and for his laundry
* Clothing: overdressing or man-made fiber coming in contact with the baby’s skin in the form of bedding or clothing. Wool
can also be irritating.
* Heat and resulting sweating
* Stress often triggers eczema. Mothers transfer their stress to their babies.
How to Treat Baby Eczema
Always consult your Doctor to get a proper diagnosis. Doctors never give oral medication for eczema in babies. Your Doctor might prescribe a special moisturizer. Your Doctor and you, working together, will need to eliminate any allergies as a possible cause of the eczema. Keeping a diary of what you eat and any changes to baby’s diet or environment, can help pin-point causes. This is especially true if there is a sudden “flare-up” of the eczema.
* Keep your baby cool. Never overdress or overheat.
* Use natural fibers like cotton for all your baby’s bedding and clothing. Make sure the clothing is loose fitting.
* Bath in lukewarm water
* Use no scented soaps or shampoos for baby or his clothing
* Pat baby’s skin dry
* Add bleach to your baby’s bath water twice a week and allow him to soak in it for about 10 minutes. It does not treat the
eczema as such, but prevents infections getting into any open sores by killing bacteria on the skin. The recommended
amount of bleach is ½ cup to 40 gallons of water.
* Moisturize baby’s skin at least twice a day to keep his skin supple. This will help keep his skin healthy.
Baby_Eczema
Another couple of tips:
* Keep your baby’s fingernails short and clean. Cut them at least once a week
* It might be advisable to put mittens on your baby’s hands to prevent scratching if the eczema is bad.
* Probiotics might help. It has been found that mothers taking probiotics pass on the benefits to the baby through breast
milk. Probiotics strengthen the immune system.
