Scratched face

[redkaybee]

Help my one year old launched herself and landed face down on a flip flop which has Perspex flowers on it. She came up screaming and scratched. It looks superficial, there wasn't any blood but it happened 24 hours ago and I am becoming worried that it may scar. Anyone had any experience of this? Any advice? I have kept it clean and am applying a natural anti bacterial lotion - it is less inflamed but I can't help getting nervous .....

Little ones' skin heals really quickly, I have always been surprised at how my dc's scratches and scrapes, particularly on faces, heal very soon and don't leave marks. I would advise not putting anything on it and just keeping it clean and dry. There is no evidence that anti-bacterial lotions or creams aid healing and in fact they can actually slow down the necessary drying out and scabbing over part. (I'm a GP and obviously I haven't seen your lo, but that is usually the case). If it looks superficial and didn't bleed then it sounds fine.

My ds managed to get a scrape in his face, cleaned it as bleeding was a number of scratches together and Tgey tge next day was a huge scan. It's totally faded.

I would say about 98% of my children's childhood injuries have healed without scarring and without special treatment :) With 3 children, there have been many injuries!

The exceptions (3 that I can think of) were deep cuts requiring glueing or butterfly plasters. Any others have faded into invisibility.

Thanks for the positive responses. We are on a beach holiday right now and am also concerned about the sun and if it affects the healing skin adversely. Also inbetween the two main scratches the skin looks red - it is scabbing over on the outer edges but is red in the middle. I can't tell how deep it is, only that there was no blood. It looks like a scrape you would get on a knee with a fall - except on the face - so sad :(

My son woke up (aged about 1yr) with a huge scratch across his cheek. No sign of it a few weeks later. I thought as he is mixed race it would heal whiter but it's fine.

Unless it is really deep, it will heal. My 4 yo got a significant scratch on his nose (babysitter somehow nicked him with her fingernail) and it looked like it might scar 5-6 months ago but now it is fine. I can just barely see where it was. So on a 1yo I would not worry. They are producing so much of everything so quickly!

As a related comparison, a friend's infant DS broke his femur (her mum fell down the stairs with him in her arms) and he had a cast on for the grand total of 2-3 weeks!