3 month old developed eczema, need advice pls

[MrsA]

My daughter is nearly 4 months old. I have been slowly weaning her off the breast and noticed her skin was becoming very dry and itchy. The doc confirm infantile eczema which I was quiet upset about. I've was given fucidin H which worked a treat. Also I was told to use a tar cream on her head - this gave her impitigo so was told not to use it again. I also switched to SMA Wysoy to see if it would help. Everthing cleared up but she really hated the formula, it made her very windy and ill a lot. She got sick a lot and it was mostly mucus, in the end she was refusing to drink it. I switched her back to the SMA Gold to see if that was the trigger and the eczema came back over the weekend. I read some of your posts and people had suggested farleys worked for them, I switched to that and it seems to have eased it somewhat. Can anyone suggest another formula, an organic one perhaps that might give least reaction?? I was considering taking her to a specialist to get her tested rather than spending months with trial and error on creams, milks, washing powders etc and putting her through hell. Has anyone had success with this.

I was away for a weekend and had to breast feed the whole time, her skin completely cleared up so I suspect the formula is the trigger.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

DD developed eczema at 4 months old. Dr told me it is smething that can happen at that age. I have to be careful not to change my brand of washing powder and he prescribed some aqueous cream to rub in and some emolium (?) lotion to put in her bath water.
Touch wood it worked and we hardly suffer with it at all now.

With my DS we switched to HIPP organic. He had developed eczema while still on the breast, frustratingly, but formula did seem to aggravate it. Comes and goes now, gets worse if he is sickening for something.

mrsa
this is exactly the same as my ds, who is now 6mth+2. and i am still breast/f , i tried all formulas, he hated the wysoy and seeing as his feeds were reducing i didnt mind continuing feeding him myself, but i do want a break from it, so i make a BIG effort to express.
anyway i hadnt much luck with the docs, the last one tols me to reintroduce the cows milk formula via the solids gradually, if i gave him more than 2oz he vomits it up. so its a slow frustrating process until i get him allergy tested as i do not intend to feed him til one year - see my other threads on this!!!

my ds skin cleared up so quickly too once i took out the formula.

i will post more on this, my dh has just made my dinnner!!

Mrs A, Is there a reason that you don't want to breastfeed anymore, as it would seem the most sensible thing. Every time you give a cow's milk based formula you are sensitising her more. If you could wait another couple of months, it might help.

dont know if its relevant or not but we are currently going thru the nightmare of reflux with our nearly 5 mth old. Our 6 yr old had reflux and also quite bad excema and after recent visit to hospital with baby they've decided may be an allergy to the milk. Anyway with baby we are about to start a hypoallergenic milk as we were told by consultant that about 40% of babies who are allergic to cows milk are also allergic to soya milk tho apparently the hypoallergenic milk tastes like sh**.

thanks for all the replies.

i don't want to continue breast feeding anymore as i'm returning to work shortly and my hours can be quiet long and don't want to be expressing. i've also having other problems such as DD wanting to sleep beside me at night or feed to sleep so putting her on bottles of formula has helped me get her into her cot. also it means DH can do a bit for a change and i can get some sleep. i'm down to one feed now so i'm pretty much there. her skin seems a bit better today with the farleys formula. i also rewashed all her clothes without softner and a extra rinse at the end. i'm only going to put 100% cotton clothes as well. i've been using olaitum which is really good.

i read up on the eczema.org web site after i posted this message and there is lots of interesting info. Basically they say it's not worth a diet change in a baby so young that isn't a severe case. also allergy testing may not be much help either. i'm a bit stumped now. I might just try an organic brand to lessen the additives etc she is getting and take it from there. I'll try HIPP Organic. I'm in Ireland, do i need to go to a pharmacists for this?

Thanks again for all your replies. I was gutted when this appeared as I thought I was doing good feeding for so long. I wonder if she was given formula from the beginning would this have happened....

I've just designed and made an certified organic cotton maternity and nursing top as I felt it was just as important for my clothes to be pure as it was for the childs. It might be too late if you are going back to work but it might help other mums reading.
www.mamacocoon.com

Ruth

I switched to Nutramigen formula from SMA with DD2. Unfortuately it doesn't taste or smell nice so on advice from GP we weaned her slowly from one to the other.

For an eight ounce bottle we started 7 scoops SMA and 1 Nutramigen decreasing the number of SMA scoops each week and my daughter didn't notice the difference.

You can buy Nutramigen from your pharmacy but I was lucky enough to get it on prescription as she went through all the allergy testing.

Hope this helps.

we use goats milk, it is great for fixing eczema, but my DC were 12mo+ when i stopped b/f. someone put a goats milk formula link on here last week, will hunt it out if i can i bookmarked it or something. unless those in the know come along first

I had the same problem with DS1 - I breastfed till 16mths and then put him onto soy milk ... Not much help I guess. A pity you have to go back to work so quickly

To soothe the skin out porride oats into a stocking and put it under the tap whilst running the bath. dd1 had bad infantile eczma and found this really helped.

just another thought we use junior oilatum (free on prescription though you can buy otc) in the bath when eczema is flaring up, aqueous cream the rest of the time. normal bubble bath dries the skin too much. otherwise nothing beats good old plain warm water...

Aveeno cream is good imho. Has oats in it.

have either of you got hayfever or asthma or any close family members

My son was formula fed from birth and still developed eczema at about 4 months, the doctor told me it would clear up in time and it has. We didn't go down the changing diet/washing powder route and the eczema is only now very mild and only appears in cold weather. We used Fucidin H when his skin was quite bad but otherwise just stuck to E45 cream and wash. Obviously every baby is different but I almost forget he ever had eczema now....so many of them have it when tiny and grow out of it so quickly. I'm quite glad we didn't fret too much about other factors.

Hi there!

This is my first post as a new mom to my 4&1/2 old son...

It is such a relief to see that all you guys have been dealing with the same thing as me...DS got eczema at around 11 weeks while he was on booby milk - I was gutted when my GP confirmed that he had it (there was me innocently thinking that all would be plain sailing if I kept him on breast milk!)

I then had probs with breast feeding and had to put him on cows milk formula - OMG poor DS's skin flared up terribly. This is what has worked for us and now his eczema has improved:

Aveeno cream by the bucketload
A mild steroid cream for use ONLY when flare ups are really bad(yes I know, but this was the only thing to stop the cycle of flare up - scabs - scratch - itch)
Switched his milk to Wysoy SMA - no new flare ups now, just got constipation to deal with instead!

I am really hoping he's going to grow out of it eventually - fingers crossed.

a baby who has problems with milk may have worse ones with soy. Pepti is not as bad tasting as other low allergen milk and your gp could possibly prescribe it.

I'm currently trialling dexeryl for eczema after getting a free sample through mumsnet. Initially I wasn't too happy with it as my skin went very red on first application. However it does seem to help if you persist. It's not very greasy, a little goes a long way and its not expensive. Aveeno didn't suit me at all but has benefited a lot of people on mumsnet.

My 11mth old has eczma and with the introduction of cows milk based formula it got much worse. We switched immediately to goats milk which we both drink normally and it got even worse after one day, we will monitor further effects of the goats milk and see if it improves.
Shall report back in a few days.

Try skin solutions from purepotions.biz. Its £7 for a tester bottle i noticed the difference the next day! I have suffered with Eczma all my life (am now 20) this is the best thing i have tried.

Excema so common on babies and most grow out of it. Both of mine were BF but had awful Eczema until about 1.5. Got referred to our local excema clinic and with some trial and error found which creams managed it.

Bath additives, emollient and hydrocortisone for flare ups. Don't be scared of hydro cortisone, used properly it is fine. Use the required amount as directed and don't scrimp. Better to use the right amount for a short time than a small amount and have to use for longer.

We were also given stretchy bandage type leggings and tops which held the cream on place and stopped them scratching.