My 19 month old daughter Lauren suffers from eczema ever since birth. It started a few weeks after we brought her home when we noticed that her cheeks were inflamed with red bumpy rashes. We didn’t know at first if it was allergies or eczema. So we took her to the doctor and he said that it was a combination of both. The doctor told us that the chances of her having eczema was very high because my husband also suffers from the same skin condition.
My daughter Lauren when she was 1 month old.
I’ve done a lot of research about eczema and I found out that it is hereditary. If one or both parents have eczema there’s an 80% chance that their child will have it too. We were hoping that it will bypass her but of course it didn’t happen. The good thing was it wasn’t severe.
Just in case you’re wondering what eczema is…
Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is a skin condition that causes recurring skin rashes, dryness and itching. Some of the symptoms also include redness, red bumps, flaking, crusting, bleeding and temporary skin discoloration.
What is her excema like?
Not all eczema are alike. In my daughter’s case her rash was mostly visible on her cheeks, behind her ears, inside her elbows and behind her knees. Sometimes it comes and goes, but when it does appear her cheeks gets red and bumpy. Her elbows and behind her knees gets really dry, scaly and patchy. She would also get rashes on her tummy and behind her neck.
The most frustrating part is the itching and the scratching. She gets scratch marks that turns into scars mostly on her arms and behind her knees. She scratches so hard that sometimes it bleeds. The intense scratching mostly happens at night. She’s usually fine in the morning and in the afternoon but as soon as night time comes she scratches like crazy.
If anyone knows the reason why, please enlighten me!
How do we treat her eczema?
We’ve tested a lot of different products and some of them worked for her and some not so much. But our main rule in buying baby products is no perfume and no dye. Here’s some tips that worked for us.
- Bathe in lukewarm or cool water.
- Always, always moisturize! We found that Aquaphor works the best!
- In worst cases where she can’t stop itching we would give her children’s Zyrtec especially at night.
- When her eczema flairs up we apply a small amount of hydrocortisone to relieve itching and to reduce the inflammation
We are still treating her eczema everyday and every night by greasing her up with Aquaphor. When it does flair up we try to control it as fast as possible by applying 1% Hydrocortizone. It’s frustrating for us but it’s probably more frustrating to her. We’re just hoping that it will improve soon.
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