When I immigrated to Canada a couple of years ago, I was happy to leave the busy world of The Netherlands behind. In that country, everything is arranged for and everything is taxed. Shortly after my arrival in Canada, my wife became pregnant. We were very excited about adding a new member to our family. And with pregnancy comes the joy of buying all kinds of baby furniture, toys, clothing and baby care products.

One of the biggest differences I have seen so far is the way babies get delivered. In Canada, most women give birth in a hospital, whereas in Holland special trained nurses visit your house. After you have given birth, the nurse visits you twice a day and teaches you how to take care of your newborn. In Canada, most women are on their own.

One day my wife came home with a big box of essential baby care products. As always, the first thing we did when a new products enters our home is to look at the list of ingredients. The first products (Penatal Creme, a very common baby skin care cream) had as its first listed ingredient Petroleum. Petroleum based creams are another example of how a commonly used baby product may actually create problems in some case. Petroleum can block pores and that can lead to a build of sebum and oils in a babies skin. This can lead to irritation, inflammation and the possible build up of the bacteria responsible for acne. Normally I am quite willing to negotiate about almost everything, but this time I said: NO, we are not using gasoline related products on our newborn.

A new study suggests that baby lotion, baby powder, and baby shampoo may be exposing babies to potentially harmful chemicals called phthalates. Phthalates are used to make plastics flexible and stabilize fragrances, and are found in a plethora of consumer products including toys, personal care products and medical equipment.

“At this time, we do not know what the potential long-term health effects might be, but there is a large body of animal studies to suggest developmental and reproductive toxicity (from phthalates) and a few human studies with changes in health outcomes as well,” Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana told Reuters Health (February 2008)”.

Why are so many care givers concerned about only using natural baby skin care? There is evidence that suggests some commonly used infant products may actually do more harm than good for baby skin leading or aggravating skin conditions like cradle cap, rashes and infant acne. The differences between adult skin and baby skin can help to illustrate why some baby products can be so damaging. When a new born comes into the world their skin develops a protective barrier. This barrier keeps out many harsh environmental elements like allergens and bacteria. Harsh detergents may strip a babies skin of much of that protection and may increase the likelihood that damage can occur. Very young infants and premature babies may be at a higher risk.

By: Chris De Feijter

When you have a baby that has eczema and is itching, there are some things that you will need to do to get him comfortable again. In this article we uncover 4 simple steps that you can use to get rid of the itching that comes with baby eczema.

Observation

One of the things that make treating a baby with eczema and itching a challenge is that your baby can not verbally complain to you the particulars of his itch. This means that you will have to do a stellar job of observing his movements and understand what he is communicating by them.

You will also have to make visible inspections over his body looking for the signs that describe to you that the factors of inflammation are at work in the area. Once you see them you can treat them.

Another obstacle you will overcome is finding the treatments that you can use that are appropriate for a baby as most adult medicines are hazardous to babies. The big reason for this is that babies do not have well built immune systems to handle the strengths of medicines that resolve itching and eczema. It is a topic to consider carefully as certain eczema treatments will adversely affect the physical growth and development of babies that are exposed to them in sufficient quantities.

Diet

Thoroughly discover and consider the advantages of using evening primrose oil to get rid of itching and baby eczema. Evening primrose oil contains GLA which is a beneficial fatty acid for your baby to have as one of the building blocks of good health in his body. Evening primrose will remove itching, as well as inflammation, and when you are treating eczema, this is exactly what you will want to happen.

Cream C

Crisco a brand of cooking oil is not good for your body to digest internally. However it makes a superior treatment for getting rid of itches in an emergency. Crisco is kept on hand in some hospital emergency rooms and are used as a quick treatment for the relief of itching for babies, children and adults who come into the hospital with varying degrees of torment that is caused by itching.

Probiotics

You will want to understand more and more about probiotics. Some people were able to reduce eczema itching and flare ups by more than 60% in terms of both frequency and severity when using probiotic supplements.

Probiotics work on the principle of having more beneficial bacteria than harmful beneficial in the intestines of the body. When this balance is correct, the good bacteria can over power the bad and this keeps itching and eczema away.

By: Broyde McDonald

When you have a baby or child with severe eczema, you know that it can sometimes be a challenge to find eczema treatments and cures that work well enough to calm down his itching and inflammation. This article will talk to you about a well respected treatment that can be used when your baby or child has a sever flare up that you need to bring under control right away.

The treatment we are looking at is the wet wrap treatment. You can rely upon it to rehydrate skin that is dry, it will calm any itching that the baby or child has from eczema; it will strengthen his skin so that it does not break and become infected easily, and it will reduce the chances that any of his open sores or blisters will become infected.

The wet wrap treatment is a favorite among people who have trouble finding other eczema treatments that work. However, you should consider making this treatment a treatment that you use only when other treatments have failed. The reason why I say this is because if you have not experienced it yet, you will find that sometimes a reliable treatment for eczema will stop working after a while of working well for you. Now watch this, wet wraps are a strong treatment. If your baby or child’s skin gets use to the treatment you may find that milder treatments do not work for him any longer. You would have made your baby’s skin super resistant to milder treatments and you do not want for that to happen.

A huge mistake that people make when using the wet wrap is to bathe in hot water before applying the wrap. Now the procedures for using the wet wrap does call for you to wash first, but you never want to use hot water in your baby’s bath if he has eczema. Even when you are preparing the wrap you should not use hot water. The procedures for using wet wraps are not covered in this article but the instructions for using them are yours for the asking.

Lastly, make sure that you do not use wet wraps with steroid or prescription medicine. Doing so can easily raise the effects of medicines into side effect proportions. Be careful, the only time you should ignore this last bit of advice is if you have instructions from your doctor who is looking at your case telling you to do otherwise.

By: Broyde McDonald