chicken pox scars

[lucykate]

our new ds caught chicken pox at 7 weeks from his older sister. had it very bad, worst on his head and face and has been left with alot of scars where scabs got knocked off, on one cheek and above his nose. has anyone else had a baby this young catch the pox, will these scars fade? dd has some scars too but luckily for her, none on her face

DD had it when she was 3.5 months old. She only had spots on her face, esp. around her eyes. Can't see any sign of them now (she'll be 4yo in October). hth

ds caught them from dd when he was 4 months. he was in a terrible state but has only a few little scars... 2 on his face but just slight indentations in the skin. barely noticeable!

my ds had it terribly at 5.5 mths. he also had terrible ezcema and the pox and ezcema aggravated each other and his skin got infected - you couldn't see any skin on his face, just pox. he looked like a shrapnel/burns victim. then got secondary lung infection.... ANYWAY this is just to reassure you that no-one could possibly have more pox on a face than him, and now that he is 2 you can't see anything unless you really peer close up. He has a few scars but they aren't craters, more slightly light patches. The good thing about them being so young is that their cell rejuvenation is working triple time (because they are growing so much and so fast) and also their heads are so small. So the scars stay the same size but their heads grow a lot so a scar that looks bad on a 7 mth old will fade and de-crater itself AND get relatively smaller.

Hope this reassures you!

DS1 (16) has a couple of tiny craters on his face; can't remember how old he was when he caught it (older than your baby though, lk) and I don't think he had it very badly but IME the first few spots that appear leave the worst scars, and they will scar whether or not the scabs get knocked off, the rest don't seem to; that applied to my DDs too and DD2 had spots everywhere.

Scars on boys' faces matter less than on girls' though - makes them look tough when they're older. DS1 has a terrific one on his forehead where he "split his head open" aged 4

does help to hear this, ds is now 13 weeks and the scars are presently still quite pink indentations, but am now much more hopeful that they'll fade given time. i know in the scale of real health problems for babies, this is only a small thing to worry about, suppose it bothered me because i felt so guilty when he came down with it because i wasn't breast feeding

a nurse friend recommended lavender oil (you must dilute it in a carrier oil first) to help scars. She's very sensible and not given to particularly alternative treatments - so I took notice and I think it worked onthe couple of scars i tried it out on.

I wasn't either lucykate (not through bloody lack of trying though aurghghghghgh that's another thread). was feeling bad enough about the ezcema before all the "well of course if you were feeding he wouldn't have caught chickenpox" crap...!

DD was fully breastfed when she caught it, Lucykate, so fat lot of good it did her; don't think it makes that much difference -- you'll have to find a better stick to beat yourself up with, I'm afraid.... .