baby eczema

[Bee]

My daughter is 5 months old and seems to be suffering from eczema. It has got worse with the heat but is also there in the cooler weather. I don't use washing detergent and she wears cotton, anyone got any helpful hints on what to use to ease this. The doctor will just prescribe steroid cream and I am loathe to do this. I suffered very badly as a child so I know how painfully itchy it can be. Any help gratfully received.

On the subject of scratching at night, I have found that a pair of girl's cotton tights cut right down to the gusset (so that just the legs are left and a strip joining them)helps my 4 year old to stop breaking the skin when scratching at night. It might sound a bit harsh (or uncomfortable) but he seems to tolerate it well. It also means that I can put lots of white paraffin cream on without it going all over the place!
Also, readers might be interested to know that some Water Companies give discounted rates on water bills if a member of the family suffers from eczema because of the amount of showering/bathing needed.

Janh - not a lot has changed, E45 and Oilatum still seem to be everybody's first stop: continued successful marketing on their part as much as anything else. They don't help my daughter at all, but the thing is, there have to be lots of different formulations available so people can try until they find out what suits their skin. Also, you can develop an irritable reaction from using a cream for a while when it worked really well at first, so then you need to change for a bit. Aqueous cream is cheap so if it works, great, but I hope a variety of creams continues to be available on the NHS.

Our GP has just changed our sons eczema bath oil to Oilatum and his cream to Diprobase, his skin has improved immensely and if he need a steroid cream I mix a small amount of it in with the diprobase. The sun does actually help his skin, but it gets worse again in the winter time.
Bee do you have any cats or dogs in the house?, or do any friends or your relations?, as we've just found out that our son is allergic to the cats and the dogs, not easy I know but our dogs are working collies and he is ok with them if they are outside, and the cats have just been demoted to the outside as well, much to their disgust!

Pupuce

I'm reading this board because my one year old developed eczema last weekend during the short-lived "heat-wave" ... But am interested in your comment that your son "chose" to give up breastfeeding - when? (I decided on mine's first birthday that I'd now like to give up, but it's all tied in with getting her to sleep, so on and so on - I'm going to write about this separately - but in the meantime am interested to guess whether she might give up herself anyway - she seems a long long way from doing that right now)

Hi Seapea,

At 6 months old my son refused the evening breastfeed (which really "shocked" me- tried several evenings but he would just turn his head-so we went onto bottles) but I was happy as he was interested in his morning breastfeed - if anything that was very convenient.
But at 8 months old he also stopped taking the breast in the morning.

I know that a lot of mothers experience this... some say it's because the child was used to the bottle (my son always had a bottle of breastmilk -freshly expressed) at 11PM from 3 weeks old until 3 months old when he started sleeping through the night 7 to 7 (yes I am a Gina Ford disciple!!!!).
He continued getting 1 bottle a day at lunchtime (of breastmilk) because I went back to work and I was expressing there so he would have it the next day.
So maybe he found the bottle more efficient - I don't know (seems like the feed was about the same length) but I had not decided to stop him- he did it on his own.
Is your child having any bottles at all ?

P.S. At 8 months old we switched to goats milk (formula) as my son had quite severe eczema - and I wasn't going to express forever - and we noticed that it was due to dairy intolerance... I serioulsy reduced MY milk intake while I was breastfeeding and when we cooked for him it was dairy (cow) free. He is free from his eczema and I think if you can resolve eczema by investigating the cause, you are better off in the long run. The investigation can be long but homeopaths and other types of alternative therapists are good at listening to you and trying with you to find the cause.... rather than giving you the quickly prescribed steroid cream... which doesn't resolve the problem - only hides it! (which means it will come back in one form or another).
By the way - my son is now on some dairy (but limited to use in cooking like cheese) and he is fine.

Pupuce -

Thank you so much for your reply. Had I better read Gina Ford after all? (I tried to borrow the book from a friend but she'd already lent it to someone else ...!). I'm a chaotic person I think, who has become a chaotic mother. So I stand little chance with Gina Ford - but I wouldn't mind some guidelines.

My one year old is still fully breastfed. And perhaps I just haven't tried hard enough with other ways of giving her milk. She refuses a bottle and has done for some months. And as it seems people have similar problems weaning children off bottles as they do weaning them off breast, I'm happy to take the advice of giving the bottle a miss. But she doesn't much take to milk in a cup - she'd rather have juice! So I give her a bit of yoghurt, butter, cheese straws (she doesn't like cheese itself) - I don't know whether all this is really a substitute.

And as I mentioned before, feeding her is all tied in with sleeping. She's never gone to sleep on her own. It may sound daft after all this time, but it's true...

As for the eczema - it seems to have gone now. Fingers crossed ... Though I have wondered myself whether milk doesn't agree with her, generally. She was collicky as a baby and the most convincing cause I've read about to date, is a lactose intolerance (so it's a reaction even against breast milk - naturally their only succour - odd but true). I thought her eczema might have come about because we ladled on the sun cream (factor 54) that weekend and probably didn't wash it off properly that night - particularly on her forehead (where the eczema came up), so her skin couldn't breath ... I don't know.

Thanks again for checking in and replying

SeaPea,

Do read Gina's book (available via amazon.co.uk) and also her Q&A in this website - You don't have to follow her routines but a lot of what she says makes sense (and to my mind works really well - but maybe I have an easy child- though I didn't think so at all the first 3 weeks - hence I followed GF to a tee).
Also if you are like me worried that your child won't have enough calcium well, dairy isn't the only source so my son has a goatmilk yogourt (about 100ml) + baby muesli + fresh apple every morning and then he has lots of vegetables during the day. Find out what the other sources of calcium are and you will quickly realise that if she doesn't drink milk you have other alternatives.
My son refuses milk out of a cup so I was forced to investigate. A book I liked on this was "What should I feed my baby" by Susannah Oliver - maybe a bulk purchase of books for this long WE???
Good luck !

I was interested to read about success in treating eczema with homeopathy or Chinese herbal medicine. Can anyone provide any more information or recommend practitioners in London / Herts? Also, was the MMR jab an issue for anyone with a baby who has eczema? My son's glands are permanently swollen and according to the gp this is because with eczema, he is permanently fighting off low grade infection. Therefore I am concerned about overloading his system with a triple vaccine.

Pj, I cannot give you any specific advice about how to treat your sons eczema with homeopathy nor can I recommend a practitioner as I live in the West Country but I do recommend homeopathy. I have had high bloodpressure successfully treated by a homeopath and we use homeopathy as part of our medicine cabinet for everything from high temperatures to bruising and teething. It has always been a great success and it is safe.

Our son has mild eczema but we have been lucky in that keeping him dairy free has kept the ezcema at bay.

Good luck...

There is a very useful book called "Miranda Castro's Homeopathic Guides: Mother and Baby", which I have used a great deal both for myself both ante and post natally, and for my daughter. It gives a valuable insight into how to to put together a diagnosis and self prescribe.

Pj, we went to the Erdos Chinese medical centre in Ruislip and our daughter improved tremendously. You should realise, however, that Chinese herbs can be risky because the amount/strength of the medicine may be poorly controlled. Many Western doctors are very much opposed to their use, citing cases of liver/kidney damage. Still, it definitely worked for us.

I have heard a bit about the eczema cream/ nut allergy link, but does anyone know which creams/bath oils are safe to use? Are E45 and Oilatum OK?

I know that the one I used is peanut oil free. It's Elena Schalburg creams- only available by mail order 01892 783 753

sponge, i saw a news report which said that oilatum bath oil is ok but their cream isn't, BUT i got a free sample from cotton comfort this week of oilatum baby eczema cream - or something like that - and the peanut oil (whose chemical name is something like arachne???) wasn't in the ingredients.

not sure about E45, except that the same news report said that prescription preparations are all ok, it's just the OTC ones that are dodgy, but as you can get E45 OTC it makes you wonder.

and why can't they call it PEANUT oil on the label so we'd all know where we are? there was a bit in Health Which? this month about unscented products which still contain "parfum", but in fact it's just a masking agent to disguise the smell of another ingredient and not perfume at all, but it has to be listed as "parfum" because of EU regulations or something.

barmy!

I was just looking over this thread again after a break and I hope I didn't scare everyone off Chinese medicine. I think it's great and it's proably just a few cases that had problems - and after all, a lot of people have problems with Western medicine (or British hospitals ) without everyone getting scared off. When we used Chinese medicine we saw the doctor every week and he checked our daughter's conditon carefully. I just wanted to sound a note of caution to counteract those who

Does anyone have any advice?? We're having a nightmare with my 16 month old boy & eczema. Having been told he was lactose intolerant, we cut out all dairy - 4 months later no change. The creams we use 2-3 times daily are Diprobase, Double Bass, Alpha-Keri oil & Dead Sea Salts in the bath. I haven't used steroids yet, but during the night get very desperate as just 3 weeks ago for the first time the itching woke him up & its now a nightly routine. He screams & scratches & ends up in my bed, awake for 2.5 hours every night. The GP gave my Piriton - doesn't always work. HELP!! Very exhausted!!

Tati- my only suggestion besides the "try to really find the cause" is the Elena Schalburg creams which several mums have tried... there is a thread on this and I believe she has an advert on the top of the home page of this site.
For us the creams were a miracle.... up to you

Here is the thread :
www.mumsnet.com/s/Talk?topicid=138&threadid=2053&stamp=020501123825

Here is her site :
www.elenascollection.co.uk/indexjs.html

Tati - We were in the same boat, and using splints (cardboard tubes on our doctor's advice - ds couldn't roll at that point).

The turning point was when gp prescribed Dimotane anti-histamine. This broke the cycle of itching and therefore scratching, which allowed the 0.5% steroid cream to work. As soon as the itching had died down (a couple of months at the most), the eczema became tolerable and manageable. He still has it, but it is under control.

Don't be afraid of steroids, my ds has had them every day for 6 months, and has come to no harm My gp says that you have to weigh up the damage done to the skin from steroids against the damage inflicted by his scratching.

It DOES get better in most cases, and I thank my lucky stars that ds's has.

Thanks Pupuce & Chinchilla for the advice. Will let you know how we get on.

Hello
Have any of you tried aloe vera gel on your children's excema? It has anti inflamatory amd anti bactierial properties and can have a beneficial effect on skin conditions. I have recently come across a company which supplies organically grown good quality aloe vera products. If you would like a catalogue let me know!

Ebony I have an uncle who sells aloe vera products and I bought some at one of his "party plan" evenings ( To be honest I felt sorry for him)
The manufacturers made the most incredible claims for their products. There was even a drink form which was supposed to kind of clean out your insides.

I have used the creams for various scrapes/burns/minor injuries but have not so far been impressed.
I am fortunate in that none of my kids have suffered from eczema so I don't know about its use for that .
I am very interested to hear if you have personal knowledge (from your own or friends' kids) of its efficacy in relieving the symptoms of eczema as I know of mothers who have tried numerous and expensive products to no avail.
Thanks

We have used Infant Starflower Oil Cream from Napiers in Edinburgh - (they do mail order or you can buy it in a shop in London)on my 14 month old son for the last year. It suits him as his skin tends to react to other 'gloopy' creams recommended for excema.

This thread has not been added to for some time but I read with interest that some people find the hard water in London seems to make their eczema worse - each time I leave London and go to to a soft water part of the country my eczema gets better and after a few times I began to make the link. Does anyone know if it is possible to add something to the bath water to make it soft?