Sensitive Skin – How to help Baby

You’ve bathed your baby. You’ve gently applied lotion her from head to toe before getting her ready to bed. Then, you notice that she is turning red, are those hives? What happened? Most often than not, you just found out that your baby has sensitive skin, which is a common occurrence. Once you know that your child is affected it is easy to avoid soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc., that can cause outbreaks.

Advertisements today seem to say that a clean baby is a sweet smelling baby, but adding lotions and scented soaps can actually do more harm than good. It’s important to remember that with babies less is more. Use products that don’t include perfumes especially during those first months of life. Read the labels to make sure you are buying products for babies with sensitive skin, there is a lot of different products available on the market today for just this purpose.

Baby’s skin is sensitive, so sensitive in fact that simply being held by someone who uses a fabric softener or detergent that is different from what a baby is used to can cause said baby to break out in a rash from head to toe. Even cleansers that are made especially for baby can cause skin reactions to some children. Many parents will be lucky and have no problems. If you have already begun to use a baby cleanser and have had no problems, consider yourself lucky and stick with it.

For those parents who have to deal with sensitive skin issues, a good solution might simply be using water and mild soap such as Dove to clean your child. Next, when picking a lotion, go for one that doesn’t include perfumes. The same should be said for baby wipes. Pick the unscented varieties, you don’t need to cover up any odors, the odors from the diaper area are removed with the wipe.  If your baby has already broken out from an irritation use 1% hydrocortisone cream twice a day for three to four days until the redness subsides.

For babies who still break out in rashes even though you are using mild soap, unscented lotion and hydrocortisone cream, seek a doctor’s advice because most likely, your child has eczema. Your child is more likely to get eczema if a close family member had it in the past.

The diaper area is another place where parents can sometimes get worried when rashes appear. Oftentimes the source of the rash might not be too much time spent in a wet diaper, it may be a skin reaction to the diaper, wipe or ointment that is being applied to the area. Simply changing diaper brands might clear up the problem quickly. Make sure your child is as dry as possible and apply Desitin ointment or Vaseline to protect your baby from moisture. If a diaper rash occurs during the first six weeks of life, or blisters or lesions ever appear contact your pediatrician immediately.