Dry skin on Newborns

[Oscar22]

Hi, have a week old baby who has very dry skin on hands and feet. Have been advised by midwife to put olive oil on skin and not bathe with any products. Olive Oil doesn't seem to work - am I using the wrong sort (extra virgin). Any advice would be appreciated. x

it'll take a few days oscar olive oil really is the best ime so just give it a little time

When are you using it? It's best done after a bath, when the baby is still damp to 'seal in' the moisture iyswim. My three were all overdue, and had horrible moulting dry skin, I think it took a while before it disappeared, so just keep persevering. It will improve! You can buy medicinal olive oil from the chemist if you think the edible one smells a bit strong, but I used the extra virgin one too (if it's good enough for the salad!)

Totally agree, olive oil does take a while but it is definitely best and does work

it took about 6 weeks for my ds's v dry skin to resolve. no baths and oiling 2x a day. i used a range of diff oils : olive, calendula, almond, grapeseed like at baby massage class.

DD2 suffered terribly with this for about a month. She was prescribed with diprobase and aquious cream. I worked brilliantly

Grapeseed oil is, apparently, even better then Olive oil...smaller molecules or somehting like that....my friend who used to work on NICU as a paed Nurse gave me that tip!
And a baby that age also doesn't need a daily bath....saying that, that may depend on how pukey or pooey they are, lol ;)
Just persevere though...and using mittens and socks over the hands and feet after oiled in seems to help, too!

Olive oil from chemist was great for my ds. Used it liberally for a short while and his crocodile hand and feet soon cleared up. Good luck and Merry Christmas
Agree with 3andnomore re: mitts and socks too.

Olive oil from chemist was great for my ds. Used it liberally for a short while and his crocodile hand and feet soon cleared up. Good luck and Merry Christmas
Agree with 3andnomore re: mitts and socks too.

btw oscar - Congratulations - it goes so fast.

DD has had quite dry skin since she was born which sometimes goes like ezcema, cracked and bleeding, and nothing worked - we tried olive oil, diprobase, E45, etc - until the dr prescribed E45 emollient bath oil. It took about a week to take effect, but every time her skin plays up now we use it and it works a treat. We bath her in it, dry her lightly then slather her in E45 to lock the moisture in before bed.

HTH

we had this and someone recommended oats, so we put some oats on a muslin cloth into the bath water and strain gets very milky and it worked well never used anything else for quite sometime afterwards

Thanks everyone for the advice - will stick with the olive oil for now and if that doesn't work then will go onto the other products you have suggested.

Thanks again - wishing you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.

xx

Can I also just mention...dry skin /eczema, etc...is a very "personal" thing...i.e. what helps one won't help another, so it's trial and error!
Forinstance, I used to be discribed Oilatum emoilient bath oil and had a hard fight to convince the doc at the time, that no matter how good it's meant to be, it brought me out in a rush, whilest the cheaper brand of Emuliderm Bath emoilient worked wonders for me at really bad times especially!
My Kids also react on Oilatum...because I tried it, as just it isn't good for me, it doesn't mean it isn't good for them!
Aqueous seems to be rubbish for all of us, too, so is E45 cream (but the emoilient face wash was fab)....
Diprobase was great for me, but Kids didn't get on so well....
so, really trial and error!