Liquid Soap Bad for Babies!?
- The Involved Dad
- Apr 27, 2018
- 2 min read
Adventure: Baby Eczema
So a few weeks ago we took Rose to get checked by a nurse practitioner because she has had a rash on her body. After a bunch of questions and an examination, the nurse practitioner said that it was heat rash. So when we got home we turned down our thermostat settings, turned on the fans, and started swaddling her without a onesie on. Even with all of these changes, the rash still remained. About a week a later we had an appointment with her pediatrician and of course we asked her about the rash. She asked if we used liquid soap. We said yes, Aveeno fragrance free baby soap. She explained that its not heat rash but rather, a reaction to liquid soap. According to our pediatrician, liquid soap is really not good to use on babies. After she said this, it explained why the rash was more concentrated on areas where we washed first or areas that didn't necessarily sit in the soapy water. Instead, she suggested that we use a little bit of bar soap to wash the soiled parts and really just water on the rest.
After about a week trying bar soap, the rash seemed to have been going away. That is until we spent a couple of hours in the warm afternoon heat at a local festival. That night the rash had returned with a vengeance! Being a Monday night we were at least able to take her to the doctor the next day. Her normal pediatrician wasn’t in that day so we had an appointment with another doctor. As soon as he walked in, he could tell that it was eczema. He said that it was very mild and that it’s common to see here in Las Vegas due to the dryness and the heat. He also mentioned that babies typically grow out of it by 6 months of age. This made perfect sense as to why the NP said it was heat rash and why our doctor said it was the soap. Both of those things cause dryness and eczema flare ups. The doctor said said that for now, all we should do is lotion, lotion, lotion. Keeps her skin moisturized, keep her cool, and avoid using liquid soap.
We’ve now been “lotioning” her like crazy for the past 3 days and her eczema has gone down tremendously. Since liquid soaps are a trigger for eczema we will continue with bar soap, as well as preventing her from spending too much time in the heat. For now, this plan seems to be working. So we’ll stick with it and be grateful that none of it seems to bother her. We’ll cross our fingers that she grows out of it.