The Battle for Baby's Skin

A little while after Will turned two months old, I started to notice that he had some reddish, scaly patches on his thighs. At the time I was using Johnson & Johnson's baby lotion and baby wash, and so I started doubling up with the lotion on those areas of his body. However, my general practitioner (and later the pediatrician) diagnosed him with a mild eczema and strongly recommended against the Johnson & Johnson's because as she said, it contains alcohol, so it tends to strip the skin of more moisture than it delivers. She also said that baths, particularly prolonged, soapy baths, can be drying, too. Accordingly, I switched and started using a Cetaphil lotion that I had on hand. Also, we started bathing him only every other day for no more than five minutes and using a gentle Aveeno cleanser only at the very end of the bath.

Over the next few weeks, despite our best efforts, I saw the red, rough patches appear on his ankles, behind his knees, around his upper arms and in his armpits, all over his chest and stomach, his back, and around his neck. As we continued with the lotion, Will increasingly began to scream and cry when we applied it to his skin. It was and still is horrible to touch your baby and have him sob and try to get away from your fingers. As the rash was spreading and growing, it seemed that the only areas in which we weren't seeing the rash were his face, head and his diaper area.

Over the past few weeks, I've been reading and researching extensively the causes and potential treatments for infant eczema. Among other things, I've learned that eczema is essentially dry skin occuring because of an intense reaction to some kind of irritant. Seems easy enough to treat, right? Well, yes and no, because the foundation of treatment revolves around locating and eliminating the irritant, but there are dozens of possibilities. Certain foods for the baby or breastfeeding mother, like citrus, milk, egg, peanut, fish, wheat, etc., chemicals, drastically changing temperatures, certain fabrics like wool or even synthetics, housedust, environmental allergies, laundry detergent - all of these things can trigger a reaction. So, looking at this list, where does one begin?

Again last night, I prayed. I prayed first that Heavenly Father would heal my little boy - perhaps that's a naive request, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. However, I also asked Him to help me find the irritant(s) and control Will's eczema. When I woke this morning, Will's skin looked as bad as ever and possibly even worse. Again, he sobbed and screamed as I tried to put lotion and cream on the affected areas of his skin. In desperation, I called my mom for help. As I was describing Will's skin to her, she stopped me to confirm that Will's eczema was only on his body and not on his head or in his diaper area. When I said yes, that that was right, she suggested that perhaps his laundry detergent is the culprit. Since the problem seems to only be where clothing touches his body, that's the most likely irritant. She suggested as well that I give all his laundry an extra rinse and that I use as little soap as possible to get the job done.

After we finished talking, I felt hope and said a quick "thank-you" prayer to Heavenly Father for helping me get started in solving the problem. I started grabbing everything I could find of a fabric nature out of his room to wash with new detergent. I'm going to go crazy on the laundry over the next couple of days. I just pray (and cross my fingers) that this will be the solution - or at least that it will help my little boy's skin heal.