Dealing with Baby Skin Fold Irritations

How to Avoid and Treat Irritated Skin on Your Baby

Newborn babies are wonderfully cuddly and cute, but they can also be pretty messy.

Milk and drool dribbles down their mouth has to end up somewhere! It all typically ends up in the skin folds around your baby's neck and (if they're really messy) even his armpits.

I had such a messy baby. James was an extremely chubby, healthy baby during the summer months of 2007. All that flab, while making him very cute, seems to be a magnet for anything that got near him.

While I was breastfeeding I would typically eat a snack myself. Crumbs, milk, drool, and juice all managed to find their way into James's neck folds and armpits and irritated the skin there.

Bibs were no help at all either. If anything having a bib around James's neck made the situation worse because it would rub the area and make it even more red and irritated.

Newborns don't have any head control, so their neck pretty much stays in one static position. Their many chins hang down over the area, creating a deep skin fold up to their neck. When this area gets wet and dirty it's really the perfect place for the skin to rub itself raw.

The best way to avoid this area getting irritated is to make sure it's clean.

You don't have to wipe it down constantly - this could irritate the area more - but at night and in the morning take a warm, wet washcloth and gently wipe down the whole area.

With newborns, you really don't have to bathe them every night. In fact, my husband and I were great fans of what is called "Topping and Tailing." It wasn't until James started eating solid food regularly, around 5 months, that we starting giving him a regular bath at night.

You also shouldn't use soap on your baby's skin. Soap can be very irritating and drying, and if the residue isn't totally washed off, it can irritate the skin even more than being dirty. Product manufacturer's want you to believe that bubble bath, shampoo, and baby oil are all essential to newborn skin care. The truth of the matter is most of these products are heavily scented and can contain harsh chemicals that aren't good for adults, let alone newborn babies.

When taking care of my son, the only product I ever used was L'Bri's Body Wash, and I didn't use it often either. If I felt like James needed to smell extra nice, then I would use the body wash over his whole body and hair (it can be used as a shampoo too). I really only used this about once a month, if that, and the rest of the time just rinsed his skin with plain, warm water.

Sometimes I would forget to wash out his skin folds and the area would get irritated. In those situations, I would first wash the area thoroughly with plain water, and then apply some Pure Aloe Jelly or Aloe Lotion to the area. Aloe stimulates the skin to heal, and just like healing a burn, it can rapidly speed up the process of healing skin fold irritations too. Usually by the afternoon, or next morning, the redness and irritation would be gone.

It's easy to let a small skin irritation freak you out, especially when it appears on your brand new baby. Just keep those areas clean with plain water and a little TLC, and there won't be anything to worry about at all.

To happy, worry-free parenting,

Leah Day

© Leah Day Online: Baby Skin Fold Irritations