My baby's got the blues.
Poor little man, he's got itchy patches of skin. It looks like contact dermatitis. Some forms of which are also called ECZEMA. I have become very familiar with eczema after watching Mina's best friend suffer from such ungodly horrible childhood eczema that her little hands and feet cracked open and bled regularly. 9 years later she finally has normally little fingers and toes, and I have developed a keen understanding of the painful extent to which eczema can go. I am hoping this itchy dry skin he's getting is just a reaction to a lotion or baby oil, or his baby head-to-toe wash, or even the laundry detergent.
So I did some research, bought some Aveeno baby wash and compared the ingredients with the regular Johnson's baby wash (which by the way is purported to be hypallergenic and dermatologist and pediatrician recommended). The primary ingredients that are different in the two washes are Polyquaternium-10, Quaternium-15, and that the Aveeno contains colloidal oatmeal. The Polyquaternium didn't seem to have any detrimental reactions associated to it, but the Quaternium on the other hand is a formaldehyde-like substance (preventing the product from molding in the bottle) and has a known reaction incidence. Hypoallergenic my ass.
The aveeno is also made by Johnson's and does not contain the Quaternium, but it does contain the colloidal oatmeal which is said to help skin maintain it's moisture and reduce itching.
Gonna try it for a week or so, see if things improve. I can only hope this was the problem and that I won't have to go through years of trying to treat his skin without relief.
Also... Alex is 3 1/2 months old now, he sits up with support, has good head control, eats well and has probably doubled his birth weight (or at least his leaving the hospital weight), and he has increasingly made mouthing motions at us when we are eating things. So, again I did some research on feeding solids. It seems that the Mom population is fairly split on this topic, it's about 50-50 as far as if you should start feeding solids when your baby seems ready or when your pediatrician thinks they are old enough. He is showing all the expected behaviors for being ready to start on solids, but he isn't yet 4 months old, let alone the 6 month age when it is actually necessary to supplement breastmilk with solids to meet their growing dietary needs. A lot of people have suggested that feeding solids too early can cause children to develop food allergies. The anthropologist in me is thinking "Wow, that's interesting since for generations people didn't have a pediatrician to tell them when it was ok, and yet the human race has not died off due to food allergies." That sort of long range, broader scope thinking leads me to believe that when the baby lets you know they need more, that is the time to do it. Also, a certain part of me wonders how many "food" allergies are more related to reactions to the pesticides and chemical fertilizers our food is grown with these days. In that case it certainly makes sense to give your child's digestion and immune system more time to develop before introducing them to possible carcinogens and teratogens... or you could just buy organic or grow your own organic and avoid that issue. Also, I could see holding off as long as possible if your family has a history of food allergies. My family has no such history. Mina started solids at 4 months on the recommendation of the pediatrician who didn't feel there was a need to postpone till 6 months. The closest thing she's ever shown to a food allergy was that when she ate acidic foods she would get some redness around her mouth. If I wiped them off fairly quickly it wouldn't turn red.
Now mind you, the pediatrician (whom I like very much) has certain responsibilities and liabilities associated with her profession. For starters, she has only met Alex 3 times in his life, once at birth, once at his 2 day check to see how feeding was going, and once at his 2 month check to receive his shots. I have trouble putting much faith in the advice of a person who barely recalls if my kid is a boy or not. She also has to err on the side of caution no matter what the situation, primarily due to the threat of malpractice suits, but also because she may not know when advising a parent if that parent has any previous knowledge or experience with babies and their care, or even if that parent is just plain stupid or not. So in looking for an answer as to whether my son is ready for solids or not I found the list of behaviors he should display, a guide as to what foods to introduce first, and how long to wait between new foods, and a whole passle of comments from moms. Half of these comments were of the "I know my baby and she needed real food sooner than this" variety and half of which were from what I think of as the paranoid-germaphobe sect saying something along the lines of "your pediatrician knows best, why would you put your child's health at risk... etc. etc." I am inclined to agree with the I-Know-My-Child group, but couldn't help running across the stupid parent population hidden within them the ones who knew their children so well they gave them ice cream to lick at 2 months old. I may feel like I know my child, but I also know that the top 4 childhood food allergies are dairy, nuts, wheat, and citrus. Sure, if your kid is wanting solids earlier than recommended, give it a shot, but at least have the common sense to start with something that isn't difficult for even a significant population of adults to digest! Stick with rice cereal, heck, if you can find it organic that's even better. At least play it safe.
I would love to hear any other opinions on this since it was such a split with the moms on the forum I looked at, but I think that being within 2 weeks of 4 months old, Alex's little systems won't be developing a whole lot more before then, so I'm gonna follow his biologically adapted cues and break out the rice cereal this week. If he has trouble with it, we'll stop and wait a few more weeks before trying it out again. If he really digs it and it helps satiate his unending appetite we'll just go with it.
So I did some research, bought some Aveeno baby wash and compared the ingredients with the regular Johnson's baby wash (which by the way is purported to be hypallergenic and dermatologist and pediatrician recommended). The primary ingredients that are different in the two washes are Polyquaternium-10, Quaternium-15, and that the Aveeno contains colloidal oatmeal. The Polyquaternium didn't seem to have any detrimental reactions associated to it, but the Quaternium on the other hand is a formaldehyde-like substance (preventing the product from molding in the bottle) and has a known reaction incidence. Hypoallergenic my ass.
The aveeno is also made by Johnson's and does not contain the Quaternium, but it does contain the colloidal oatmeal which is said to help skin maintain it's moisture and reduce itching.
Gonna try it for a week or so, see if things improve. I can only hope this was the problem and that I won't have to go through years of trying to treat his skin without relief.
Also... Alex is 3 1/2 months old now, he sits up with support, has good head control, eats well and has probably doubled his birth weight (or at least his leaving the hospital weight), and he has increasingly made mouthing motions at us when we are eating things. So, again I did some research on feeding solids. It seems that the Mom population is fairly split on this topic, it's about 50-50 as far as if you should start feeding solids when your baby seems ready or when your pediatrician thinks they are old enough. He is showing all the expected behaviors for being ready to start on solids, but he isn't yet 4 months old, let alone the 6 month age when it is actually necessary to supplement breastmilk with solids to meet their growing dietary needs. A lot of people have suggested that feeding solids too early can cause children to develop food allergies. The anthropologist in me is thinking "Wow, that's interesting since for generations people didn't have a pediatrician to tell them when it was ok, and yet the human race has not died off due to food allergies." That sort of long range, broader scope thinking leads me to believe that when the baby lets you know they need more, that is the time to do it. Also, a certain part of me wonders how many "food" allergies are more related to reactions to the pesticides and chemical fertilizers our food is grown with these days. In that case it certainly makes sense to give your child's digestion and immune system more time to develop before introducing them to possible carcinogens and teratogens... or you could just buy organic or grow your own organic and avoid that issue. Also, I could see holding off as long as possible if your family has a history of food allergies. My family has no such history. Mina started solids at 4 months on the recommendation of the pediatrician who didn't feel there was a need to postpone till 6 months. The closest thing she's ever shown to a food allergy was that when she ate acidic foods she would get some redness around her mouth. If I wiped them off fairly quickly it wouldn't turn red.
Now mind you, the pediatrician (whom I like very much) has certain responsibilities and liabilities associated with her profession. For starters, she has only met Alex 3 times in his life, once at birth, once at his 2 day check to see how feeding was going, and once at his 2 month check to receive his shots. I have trouble putting much faith in the advice of a person who barely recalls if my kid is a boy or not. She also has to err on the side of caution no matter what the situation, primarily due to the threat of malpractice suits, but also because she may not know when advising a parent if that parent has any previous knowledge or experience with babies and their care, or even if that parent is just plain stupid or not. So in looking for an answer as to whether my son is ready for solids or not I found the list of behaviors he should display, a guide as to what foods to introduce first, and how long to wait between new foods, and a whole passle of comments from moms. Half of these comments were of the "I know my baby and she needed real food sooner than this" variety and half of which were from what I think of as the paranoid-germaphobe sect saying something along the lines of "your pediatrician knows best, why would you put your child's health at risk... etc. etc." I am inclined to agree with the I-Know-My-Child group, but couldn't help running across the stupid parent population hidden within them the ones who knew their children so well they gave them ice cream to lick at 2 months old. I may feel like I know my child, but I also know that the top 4 childhood food allergies are dairy, nuts, wheat, and citrus. Sure, if your kid is wanting solids earlier than recommended, give it a shot, but at least have the common sense to start with something that isn't difficult for even a significant population of adults to digest! Stick with rice cereal, heck, if you can find it organic that's even better. At least play it safe.
I would love to hear any other opinions on this since it was such a split with the moms on the forum I looked at, but I think that being within 2 weeks of 4 months old, Alex's little systems won't be developing a whole lot more before then, so I'm gonna follow his biologically adapted cues and break out the rice cereal this week. If he has trouble with it, we'll stop and wait a few more weeks before trying it out again. If he really digs it and it helps satiate his unending appetite we'll just go with it.
posted by AnywhereEden | 8:02 PM
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4 comments
