Treat Baby Eczema

Beating a bad case of baby eczema is more than just beating the itching and irritation of the skin. Its also about saving your child from emotional distress and building their confidence. From my experience I have been teased for having some type of “weird looking” rash on my arms when I was a child. And while the statement of “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me” has some merit too it, I still felt the sting and pain of the words that these kids sang about my arm. Some may argue that this type of verbal abuse made me stronger or help me develop “tough skin” but in essence it made me more self conscious of myself and promoted the idea that I wasn’t pretty enough for people to like me. As an adult I can now look back and laugh at the situation, but as a child, I thought I was cursed with this baby eczema disease and wanted to clam up and hide. As a parent, I don’t want my child to experience this pain. I fully understand that I can’t protect my child from every verbal harassment, but I now know how I can help her with minimize the stinging effect from the harsh words she may receive from other kids about her eczema.

The first step a parent should take is focusing on find a treatment that provides maximum relief. When there is less itch, there is less irritation and less likely the appearance of your child’s eczema will get worst.

When your child becomes more aware of their condition, do your best on educating them on what baby eczema is. You don’t have to get real scientific with them, but do tell them that it’s not contagious and that a lot of other kids have it. It is said about 10 – 25% of children have this skin condition, so they are not alone.

My last advise is not to make having eczema a big deal. I’ve seen and heard many parents allow their child’s eczema run their lives. These parents would limit their children’s activity or constantly use it as an excuse to keep their children from playing with other kids, swimming in pools, or playing on a play ground set. I know that some of these parents are looking out for the health of their child, but they are also robbing them of life experiences and turning their child’s eczema into a life limiting crutch.

This video is probably the most informative video I have seen on the topic of babies with eczema. It truly reminded me of my experience of taking my child to a health professional. Enjoy!

Livestrong.com is a website that has an abundant amount of information about healthy living. So for kicks I decided to join its community site and see what type of information they had available about eczema. To my surprise, they had some very value articles that shared a lot of great information. One of the most informative and practical articles they had about eczema was titled “5 Things You Need to Know About Food and Eczema.” This article really opened my eyes on how food can be linked to eczema. Well enjoy the read.

Photo: Ian Boddy/Science Photo Library

Watching my son suffer through baby eczema was a heart wrenching and helpless experience. He was only 2 months old when he got his first major breakout. My son had his baby eczema on both sides of his face, a tiny patch on his left elbow and a little area on his back. On his monthly check ups, I would ask our pediatrician if there was any type of cure or treatment for this disease. She explained that there is no cure currently available and I that I could only ease some of the itchy symptoms.

Some of the early advice I was given to treat my son’s baby eczema was to keep his face moisturized and clean, make sure he doesn’t scratch the infected areas, and make sure that I avoid him from over heating and sweating. These steps did have a little effect on my son’s skin condition but it didn’t last too long. So I decided to try some of the popular over the counter baby eczema creams like hydrocortisone. When hydrocortisone stopped working, I gave in and tried some of the prescription creams and ointments containing stronger corticosteroids. BIG MISTAKE… because my son suffered some of the side effects of using these prescription creams and ointments! I’ve learned that some of the side effects of using corticosteroids can lead to even more itching and burning, acneiform eruption, growth retardation and delayed weight gain.

Learning from this painful experience, I decided to do my own research on ways to treat baby eczema. What I found was both very enlightening and very shocking. The thing that was very enlightening was that treating baby eczema really came down to a handful of factors. Two major factors to treating this disease are reducing your baby’s pain and stress naturally. One of the best tips I’ve found useful was eliminating a lot of the preservatives and artificial colorings from my son’s and I diets because they are found to be the most common foods that causes baby eczema.

What I found shocking is that a lot of pediatricians and doctors don’t mention the natural alternative to treating baby eczema. So I urge all mothers and fathers who have a child who suffers from baby eczema to do there own research and look into natural ways of treating this life hampering disease.