Why have so many kids got eczema?

[Solveitch]

Hi all

I was speaking to my Father-in-law tonight and he asked me why eczema was so predominant in children these days? I couldn't anser him - can anyone? I suppose the more you think, either because it didn't affect us before, it didn't seem such a big problem, whereas now, if we have children with eczema it affects us, therefore is such a part of our life. I'd be interested to hear anyone's views (so I can get back to my father-in-law)

Thanks
Tracey

not sure really. with myself, my sisters and brother none of us really had ezcema. suffered a bit with contact dermatitus in late teenage years when using cleaning products etc, but not childhood ezcema.

now both my dd's have it and 2 of my neices. with my dd's and one of my neices their dads have eczema, whilst the other neice, none of them suffered with it.

My dd1 is the most severely affected, followed by my oldest sisters dd (mieows dd2), then my other dd. neice2 has what i would call mild ezcema.

Um, well, I have one theory although it always makes me think I sound crackers. I don't know if eczema has become much more common here than in other European countries, so am prepared to be shot down in flames if they are just as bad, but my theory (ahem) is that it's down to processed baby foods in the UK and the inappropriate ingredients in them.

For instance, one of the cereals for 3 months on - THREE MONTHS!!! - that was available when DS2 was a baby (11 years ago) was rice and strawberry - STRAWBERRY!!!!! One of the most significant allergens for small children! And other early packet foods include things like cinnamon and other spices - SPICES! think about it! - for flavouring. Most processed baby foods have a mixture of ingredients and if you don't read the labeLs with a magnifying glass you don't know what you've just put into their mouths.

DD1 was born in the US over 20 years ago and one of the presents I was given was a book about baby feeding which included a chart of when certain foods could be given - things like strawberries and cinnamon were strictly for 12 months and above. It was also possible to buy jars of pure foods - peas, carrots, pears, chicken etc - and packets of pure cereal - rice, oats, barley, wheat - not mixed-up stuff and not "dinners".

FWIW, DD1 is the least allergic of our 4 children....

Isn't there a theory that allergy type things like asthma and eczema are due to the 'sterile' environments we all create nowadays?

I think it's more to do with genetics though.

janH I don't think your theory is crackers at all

Whilst we are throwing ideas in.... here's one..
No history of eczema in my family or dh...
ds has to go to hospital at 3 weeks old and is put on various antibiotics,for a non specific viral illness.
He later develops horrible childhood eczema.
Ds is now 2.9 months... but I really wonder about the possible connection.

all the chemicals we get in contact with?? strong cleaning products not rinsed properly, synthetic clothing (even nappies must relese some sort of chemicals), soaps and bath products none really knows what they contain as extra ingredients, food additives, plastics touching food, all man-made stuff really that we get in contact with from early on. even pets wearing all sorts of chemicals on them (flea products, synthetic collars). all in my mind though no idea if it does have any relation to it at all.

JanH - you may not be far wrong there, you know. It's certainly one of the biggest changes from my childhood - far more processed foods available for babies.

I don't buy the "sterile environment" argument, never have. Mainly because even with cleaners etc, the amount of bacteria around you numbers in the millions ... if anything, due to the popularity of low temperature washes there are MORE bacteria and mites in bedding than there would have been when we were kids even in the most rabidly clean household.

The chemicals idea might be a link... hard to say. There have been bad chemicals around for a while though - I think you'd have to find specific ones that have increased in use in recent times.

I understood from mear's friend's research that bathing babies in products in hospital (or before 2 weeks old) can sensitize their skin as well... would be interesting to know what the procedure/advice was when we were kids and how that's changed.

Pollution??

both my boys have had eczema pretty much right from the word go despite being breastfed for first 12 months and weaned onto organic foods.Eczema became a real problem for them both after first set of immunisations and this has been a real problem for us.Their daddy has eczema and asthma and is allergic to several things.I think for them it's mostly hereditary.I wish they took after me !!!

Antibiotics, washing powder that actually cleans, pollution, immunisation leading to an immune system which doesn't have enough to do and starts attacking itself.

My hunch is that it's something to do with a 2nd and 3rd generation of babies who have been exposed to cows milk (ie formula) and solid food at ever younger ages. Not directly necessarily, my ds was exclusively bf and I started solids at 6 months as per advice. However me and my dh were fed formula at birth and my dad (not sure about his parents) was formula fed. I'm not even sure that it can happen, I'm sure scientists could explain to me why this is so - but I've just got this strong feeling that somehow our sensitisation and that of ds's grandparent(s) has been passed to ds.

This is an interesting (but technical) article for anyone interested in why allergies develop.

www.rednova.com/news/stories/2/2004/01/13/story108.html

The summary says

"An important relationship exists between parasite infections and the development of atopic disorders. Long-lived parasite infections may offer protection against atopic diseases by immunosuppression. "

Most importantly there is a lot of evidence that having the right bacteria in the mother affects the baby - so any pregnant woman can reduce the risk of allergy in her children by having probiotics for a couple of weeks before the birth. If only someone had told me that years ago!

Tell fil they were a dirty lot

Ezcema is more prevalent here in the UK than in the US. A lot more prevalent. It leads me to believe that there's something environmental here: a drying quality in the water? Something specific in washing powders? My kids both had moderately bad ezcema as babies. In both cases, their ezcema went away after a few weeks in the US. It then came back when we returned to London. My American friends have reported the same phenomenon.

In the case of dd, we actually moved to the States during the height of her eczema. The move seemed to clear it up permanently, and it hasn't reappared now that we're back in the UK.

We wash them more often than we used to. I know this doesn't explain the difference between the US and us. When I was a kid I had a bath once a week, washed hands and faces the rest of the time, and any manky bits with a quick wipe. I was considered at that time to be quite clean.

My kids get a bath or shower every day. This strips away the oils in the skin and makes skin probelms more common I think.

I do realise that the allergy based eczema is a different thing.

Also to a slight degree I agree with your fil, I had eczema as a child and my mother just accepted it as one of those things. Both my kids have it and I worry about it a lot.

ALexsmum - I'm inclined to think hereditary too. My friends two children have eczema quite badly and I think they just take after her as she has it - she breastfed them in an attempt to prevent it but they still suffer and they are really badly affected by bubble baths etc and the chlorine in swimming pools.

My ds's don't react to anything at all - I can use anything on them and I bottle fed them. I think they just don't have that predisposition because neither dh or I have any sort of allergy.

I don't particularly buy the 'sterile environment' either - it's just that I heard a HV suggesting it to a new mum in the clinic!

I'm inclined to the 'sterile' idea. We have no eczema in our family except for dd. She has congenital heart disease and has spent loads of time in ICU and is generally more 'wrapped in cotton wool' than my other two children. They were allowed to 'get dirty', mix with children with childhood illnesses etc. My eldest (now 16) was breastfed for 2 whole weeks was weaned at 12 weeks and is the healthiest of my 3.

That said dd has also taken and still takes lots of medication so hers could be linked to that, or to stress (it developed when she was 8).

Just out of interest - do the medical profession have a real idea of why or is all of it just theory?

all just theory from what i've encountered with consultants.

dd1 is atopic, has all the symptons of atopy, so mot much we can do tbh. she reacts to everything and nothing. dd2 has only ezcema, no other allergies, so might just be childhood ezcema. but dd2 vomits specatulaly, and has a dodgey gut so her ezcema may be linked to that.

Oh, another thing that struck me was that we eat more processed food now and it's all got bit of allergen in it - here in NZ it's milk that gets into everything, in US it used to be corn and peanut oil, but not sure if that's changed. Soy is in everything now so I anticipate that our children's children will have a high rate of soy allergy.

No-one really knows. Obviously genetics is a huge element. But it can't explain the HUGE rise in allergies over the past 30 years. The UK has the worst allergy problem of an developed country so what has happened here, compared to the rest of Europe or the US?
Loads of research going on into this. The main theory seems to be that something in the environment is triggering allergies in people who are genetically susceptible - your grandparents may have had the genetic predisposition to allergy, which they passed down to you, but they didn't have allergies themselves because they had never been 'triggered'. As if we are lowering the threshold in some way.
The hygiene hypothesis is based on research showing, for example, that allergies are more common in first-born children (younger siblings are exposed to more disease-carrying organisms from their older siblings) or in city children as opposed to those growing up on farms (however clean the family are, they are living in an environment where there are more disease-carrying bacteria/viruses etc.) Then there's the issue about us all being cleaner, bathing more, using more cleaning products around the house, spending more time in the house with the windows shut.
Some research just published was very odd, found that children whose parents cleaned the house vigorously, no pets, etc. etc. were more susceptible to allergies.Middling familes who did clean but not excessively and had pets had the lowest risk and households that had the highest level of bacteria (guess they meant a bit dirty) were again, highly likely to have allergic children.
And it's true that there are far more chemicals in our environment and therefore in our bodies and our children's bodies than there were 50 years ago. Flame retardants in electrical equipment, household cleaners, pesticides on food etc. etc. Maybe they've sensitised our children?
FWIW, dh has exczema/asthma and is allergic to everything except food (fur, feathers, house dust, pollen, grass). But no-one else in his family has any allergies. He's the only one. I don't have any allergies and only one in my family is hayfever but poor ds has eczema, despite being breastfed (admittedly, one bottle of formula a day from something like eight weeks). Why them?

BTW, ds has never come into contact with detergents/bath products/baby lotion, because we were trying to avoid allergies as far as is possible.

bump 3, will not be exposed to as many chemicals as my previous two. my cleaning prodcuts are minimal. soap powder use is minimal, planning to breastfeed as long as possible, cotton clothing etc etc. plus we have hard floors and blinds in the kids rooms.

What about central heating?

we do have central heating, but we open windows on daily basis.

Wow

I never thought I'd get so much response from this question. I'm not sure what to think. My mother-in-law has ashtma and both hubby and sister had it too, so maybe it's hereditary. I breast fed dd for 4 months and as she was my first, in my mum's words 'did everything by the book'. My mum tells me maybe if I was a bit more relaxed about things and didn't do as much cleaning, sterilising etc to the extremes it might have made a difference - who knows? Interestingly my mother-in-law has been having discussions with others about their children with eczema and as there is quite a lot, the majority of them had been breast fed. Ones on forumala milk didn't seem to be as bothered, so mum-in-laws view is that although babies are getting breast fed they were also being exposed to allergens etc that the mum was taking in. I beleive breastfeeding is a great advantage but personally, it didn't help me with dd's health. I beleieved she would get less colds, less skin problems, etc when in reality she seems to have a cold all the time and skin is pretty bad.

Thanks for all the replies.
Tracey