Common baby rashes
Categories: Newborns, Babies, Safety
Besides the persistent smattering of bruises across his poor wee forehead caused by misguided exploring and wobbly standing legs, Nolan has a lot of skin issues.When he was newborn, he had cradle cap as well as infant acne, and he's hosted a score of perplexing and mysterious rashes since then. I'm not sure if it's because he's so incredibly pale that every little aberration screams loudly, or because I'm obsessive and paranoid -(possibly a bit of both) but he seems to always have some kind of a rash.
Lately, it's behind his kneecaps and it's scaly and red. I've been rubbing a little lavender and calendula on it and it seems to help, but I am still not positive what it is.
Tonight while looking for clues online, I found this page which displays various baby rashes and their explanations. It's not pretty but it's useful. I believe my wee babe has a case of infant eczema.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kim 6-12-2006 @ 10:12AM
We escaped cradle cap but Oliver had horrible baby acne. He has occasional mild eczema, especially on his legs.
At our doctor's recommendation, we use a tiny amount of Aveeno hydrocortisone on the red patches for a day or two. For everyday we use Mustela Stelatopia lotion. It's for eczema-prone skin and seems to keep the outbreaks to a minimum. Since using it, I haven't reached for the hydrocortisone more than about once a month.
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Franni 6-12-2006 @ 10:42AM
My daughter has always had eczema and when you described the location, I knew that it was probably it. It's horribly itchy and prevention is actually the best. the only creams/ointments prescribed for eczema all have some level of steroids, so I would prefer to prevent rather than have to slather that stuff on. I rub her down with eucerin/aquaphor every night within minutes of her bath to seal in moisture. It helps a lot. What also helped is minding her temperature. The rash appears also when she gets too warm.
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thordora 6-12-2006 @ 10:43AM
OY! That sucks. Rosalyn had terrible cradle cap, and then segued into excema on the face/behind the ears, and as the piece de resistance, a yeast rash on her bottom.
I felt like the WORST mother in the world. But the doctor said it was normal, esp in families with skin conditions. They gave a steroid creme for the excema, and advised to moisturize frequently, and basically, canesten creme for the yeast rash. Cleared everything up. Ok, switching to hypoalergenic detergents for the first year did that but still..It will go away, but god, you feel icky just looking at it...
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Kim 6-12-2006 @ 10:50AM
One more thing...we changed from nightly baths to weekly baths. That helped more than anything.
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Keri 6-12-2006 @ 11:54AM
Yep, my son has weekly baths because of his mild eczema. It was worst during the winter but I found that Burt's Bees Skin Creme got rid of the rash immediately. It works really well and the baby smells so good! ;)
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Jenn 6-12-2006 @ 11:55AM
Oooh yeah, definitely sounds like eczema (behind the knees.) My son has it bad too. You may want to talk to the pediatrician next time you go in, about the possibility of food allergies... it turned out my son's eczema is triggered/exacerbated by some foods he's allergic to: wheat, soy, eggs, peanuts, and now a year later milk. They drew blood and did a test called RAST, and it came back with allergies to those foods. And also dogs and cats and dust mites, so we had to find new homes for our cat and dog. :-( Hopefully you won't have to go that far, but our kid's face was bleeding daily because of the scratching. It's worth the sacrifice though, his skin is much better now.
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Jeff 6-12-2006 @ 1:51PM
Sounds SO familiar...
Our little guy had it behind the knees too. Tell tale of eczema. He too had the RAST and hit on peanuts and egg whites. Mom is a serious peanut butter fanatic and with her nursing, he (the boy) was getting peanuts through mom. Mom swore off the nuts (and egg) and things cleared up considerably. Allergies don't cause eczema, but they can cause eczema symptoms to flare up.
We're using something called Vanicream (or Vannicream). And there's a version with SPF 60 built in. It's nice in the summer to use the Dr. recommended stuff and get sunscreen to boot. Most sunscreens have non-desireable chemicals when you have a dermis dainty sprog.
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Keri 6-12-2006 @ 2:19PM
I would wait on getting rid of the pets. My brother was found to be allergic to cats when he was young. It was a very sad day for me when we had to give away our three cats. However, he outgrew the allergy (or maybe he was really allergic to something else?) so we could have kept our cats. =(
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Sophie 6-12-2006 @ 5:54PM
food allergies here too. And BTW I HATE doctors... including a top world dermatologist who swore to our face that food allergies do not cause excema, that food the mum eats has no impact on baby and a full bunch of similar crap (but she was happy to bill us $50 a month to renew our hospital grade treatment at an additional $50 copay a month)
Excema -> never EVER start with creams. Creams do NOT fix the problem, they HIDE the problem.. so only when you figure out what create the flare - whether crappy laundry powder, whether dog or cat, whether food, whether whatever, then reduce the exposure as much as possible, and try to control the rash/excema as much as possible.
If you need help figuring out, you can go for RAST and SPT, but you can also try to guess, and by rotation, remove/introduce a few elements like sending the cat away to grandma for a week and see if it's better or not.
Only then, you can go for creams (avoiding any cortisone on face). we went for 90% body bleeding under hospital grade ointmentS to a few quarter size patches of excema, we went from $12 of Rx cream a week to virtually no treatment juste with an attentive food diet, and a double rince on our laundry... what an improvment!
Sophie.
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Rachel 6-14-2006 @ 11:16AM
Poor Little Guy!!
I have horrible excema, and my son has a mild case too, one of the best things I found for him was Gentle Naturals Baby Excema Creme. Its mostly herbal, and super moisturizing. It really works too, I've even used it one myself once or twice. They also make an Excema wash, you can get both at Target, and probably most drug stores.
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Laura Hake 6-22-2006 @ 2:05PM
My son is 4 months old and has had baby eczema since he was 3 months old. Started with the cheeks, then with each flare up has
migrated south. My doctor says its not caused by allergies (he says there would be other symptoms- can you tell I am now skeptical of this?), and that using the over the counter 1% cortizone very conservatively, only when its really bad,even on his poor cheeks, is okay. I really don't want to use the cortizone! I've now read many comments on checking on food and other allergies,and I think I can at least feed him soy formula for a week and see if that helps. I'll also get grandma to switch laundtry soaps. Thanks for the comments on treating the source, not symptom! We already use Ecover laundry soap (no dyes/ fragrances) and organic baby cow milkformula. Also been slathering him with Gentle Naturals, but would prefer a non-petrolum based product that really is all natural, but I think that the persistence of petrolum on the skin helps keep it moist. Has anyone tried the Waleda baby cream? It contains calendula, vitamin E, etc.,which are all good for skin, but doesn't have petroleum jelly. After working on the cause, I'm going to try a Waleda baby cream/vaseline mixture. A lovely baby reduced to an itchy mass.
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