Does it sound like I should talk to a GP about baby acne anxiety?

[crispycola]

My baby is 3 months old. On the whole I don’t worry too much about him. He’s happy, healthy, hitting development milestones, eating well, sleeping well. Smiling and easy going. I’ve mostly been totally fine with adapting to parenting, but he has baby acne and it has turned into a kind of obsession for me. I am so scared he will have scarring on his face for life. I had been washing his face when he first had the acne and cleaning away some of the little bumps that were flaking off and worry I caused these little pitted scars. He has about 4 on his nose, one right in the centre, and still has more acne clogged pores that I worry will cause more scars.

I wake up worrying about it in the middle of the night. I sometimes find it hard to look at him because I am scared to see the scars. It’s kind of snowballed into obsessing about washing his clothes or any fabric he’s in contact with. We went out for the day yesterday and I was so worried about dirt on his face or germs getting on him when we go to the supermarket. I get scared my hands aren’t clean enough so sometimes I struggle to pick him up. I feel like I’ve let him down and ruined his face when I am supposed to be protecting him. I look at other baby’s faces and just feel awful that his isn’t smooth and perfect. It’s like an icy cold feeling that goes down the middle of my body, like a physical feeling of panic inside me. I posted on here a few days ago and a kind lady replied and said her baby had similar and the scars faded but I saw another poster say her son in his 20s has scars from baby acne, so I don’t think my worries are totally unfounded.

All of this feels like a level of worry that’s got a bit out of control. But I don’t know how to help myself let go of it. I’ve booked a GP appointment to ask them about the acne, but I wonder if I should book myself an appointment to talk about the anxiety. My husband is trying to be supportive but basically just says as long as the baby is healthy I don’t need to worry about anything.

I think the anxiety is a much bigger problem than baby's skin. Speak to the GP about that so that you can find coping mechanisms that you use when the anxiety is flaring up about your child - because once the skin clears it might be that you transfer the anxiety to something else.

It could also be just adjusting to motherhood, which is an enormous change and I think some level of anxiety is absolutely normal, but there comes a time when you need some help with it.

I remember your earlier thread. I think an appointment about anxiety would be a good plan.

Thanks 🥲 I hadn’t thought about the anxiety transferring but I can see that happening. I already feel like it’s creeping into other things with the hand washing and germ worrying.

I saw a GP this afternoon about the baby (my GP surgery seems to be unparalleled in how quickly you can get an appointment) and they prescribed some cream for him. I asked about the scarring and they told me it can leave scars but it doesn’t look like he has any really deep ones right now. It was good for me to just hear someone say that the thing I am scared of is real and does happen.

While they were typing the prescription I tried to work up the courage to say I was anxious about it, but I’d already taken up the 10 minutes and was on the edge of crying by after the scarring question so I bailed. It might take me a few days but I think I will request an appointment to talk about it.