The folds on a child’s legs should be symmetrical

The skin of a newborn baby is perhaps the most delicate thing in the world. In the mother's womb, it remains soft and silky due to the specific composition of amniotic fluid. But as soon as the baby is born, his skin has to experience real stress: unusual dryness, sudden temperature changes, tight-fitting diapers, diapers...

As a result of all this, the skin of the newborn becomes very dry, and especially on the hands and feet.

The situation can be corrected with industrial cosmetics, but it is a priority, and most importantly, it is more environmentally friendly and safer to sterilize vegetable oil for newborns yourself.

Distinctive features

Some manifestations on the skin of newborns disappear on their own during the first weeks after birth. Others require special attention with the use of children's hygiene and cosmetic products

Babies' skin has a number of features that can confuse or frighten their parents in the first days after their birth. These phenomena do not require active outside intervention, but they also necessitate more careful care for the baby.

• The subcutaneous fat layer in newly born children is still quite weakly expressed (especially if the child is born a little earlier than the scheduled date). Therefore, you can often notice a network of blood vessels that are visible through the translucent epidermis - marbling of the skin.

Due to this feature, a baby needs to wear one more layer of clothing than an adult, whose subcutaneous fat prevents them from freezing.

• The presence of primordial fluff - lanugo - on the skin of a newborn is a common and obligatory phenomenon. For some it covers the cheeks and shoulders. And some even have hips. This makes babies' skin feel soft and velvety to the touch. Over time, the hairs simply roll out.

Marbling of the skin in newborns

What can you use to lubricate folds?

To perform your daily toilet, you can use a variety of cosmetics, for example:

• Moisturizing oils;
• Powders;
• Creams.

For newborns, processing clutches will not take much time if everything is done according to the rules. Any product should be used in strict accordance with the instructions attached to it. It is strictly forbidden to use cosmetics intended for children over one year old - they are not suitable for the delicate skin of infants.

Oil

Parents and children's doctors often argue about which oil to wipe the folds of a newborn. There are many products on sale that vary in price and composition. Natural oils based on plant components create a thin protective film on children's skin, protecting it from the penetration of dangerous pathogens.

Cream

If parents don’t know what to use to wipe the newborn’s folds, you can choose the good old baby cream. It has a good moisturizing effect and protects vulnerable areas from drying out, irritation, and redness. You should not buy expensive creams, since their action is similar to that of the domestic “Children’s” cream.

Problems

But there are also manifestations on the skin of newborns that require active action on the part of parents.

Gneiss

The yellowish crusts that form on the heads of infants are called gneiss. And they do not pose a health threat. This is a dried and layered secretion of the skin glands, which, due to the physiological characteristics of newborns, is secreted very actively in the first months of their life. But it is quite difficult to wash off.

There is no benefit from these crusts. They prevent the skin from breathing, and they don’t look very presentable. To remove them, spread the gneiss with baby oil or olive oil (sunflower oil) sterilized in a water bath 1 hour before bathing the child. While bathing, remove softened crusts with a cotton swab.

Or use a special shampoo for gneiss. You can purchase it at the pharmacy.

Prickly heat

A rash of small reddish dots that occurs mainly in skin folds is called miliaria. To prevent its occurrence, you must first of all ensure that the child does not overheat. And it is necessary to bathe the baby, as expected, every day.

If you notice such a rash on your baby’s skin, air baths and baths with decoctions of medicinal herbs will help rid your little one of it.

A weak solution of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate) is also used for children's baths. It dries out prickly heat well.

Diaper rash

Diaper rash or diaper dermatitis is irritation on the skin of a newborn in the diaper area due to prolonged contact with a wet surface.

Use special baby creams that have a drying and antimicrobial effect every time you change your baby's diaper.

Cleanliness and dryness are the best preventive measures against diaper rash in infants.

Causes of skin problems

Infants in the first year of life are at risk for a variety of skin problems, because at this age their immune system is not yet perfect, and any contamination can lead to infection. The most common causes of skin problems in infants under one year of age are:

• Improper implementation of hygiene measures;
• Failure to comply with daily hygiene rules;
• Parents’ ignorance of what to apply to the newborn’s folds;
• Poor nutrition of the child and the presence of a large number of allergens in his daily food;
• Constant wearing of synthetic clothing by the baby;
• Rare change of bed linen in a child's bed.

Pediatricians also say that infants very often have problems due to unsuitable disposable diapers. Diapers should fit well; They need to be changed as they become dirty, but at least 8-10 times a day. From time to time, you need to give your baby the opportunity to spend a little time without a diaper; air baths are the best way to prevent diaper rash and any other skin diseases. It is also an important means of hardening the baby. It is best to carry out air baths before bathing, when the child is actively awake. The approximate duration of the procedure is at least half an hour. In summer, during the waking period, you can replace diapers with disposable diapers.

Alys who are prone to allergies often suffer from diaper rash

Interesting. In children under the first year of life, skin problems often arise due to a variety of allergic reactions and individual intolerance to certain nutritional components. In this case, the nursing mother should reconsider her diet. If the child is bottle-fed, you need to change the milk formula to a hypoallergenic one.

Daily care

Considering the immaturity of a child’s skin at the time of birth and the need for their adaptation to environmental conditions, they need daily care for at least the first few months of the baby’s life.

Moreover, when carrying out hygienic procedures for caring for a baby’s skin, special attention is also paid to its mucous membranes. Since in newborns they are especially vulnerable to the penetration of pathogenic bacteria and microorganisms into the body.

The child must be washed every morning. To do this, prepare warm boiled water in advance. You will also need cotton pads and flagella.

Eyes

Use damp cotton pads to wipe your eyes

Morning toileting is best done with the baby on the changing table.

Start with the eyes. Soak a cotton pad in water and wipe the child’s right eye with it from the outer edge to the inner one. Do the same with the left eye, but using a different disc.

Now moisten the turunda with water (this is a small flagellum twisted from cotton wool) and, inserting it into one of the baby’s nostrils, gently scroll it, as if screwing it into the nasal passage, but not too deep. Then slowly pull out the cotton wool that has collected all the excess. This way you can easily free a newborn’s nose from the crusts that have formed in it, which make nasal breathing difficult. Having finished with one nostril, arm yourself with another turundum and clean the second nostril.

Wipe the outside of your baby's nose with a damp cotton pad.

A newborn baby's ears need to be cleaned 1-2 times a week. This is quite enough. Using a cotton swab moistened with water, use the same scrolling movements to clean the skin of the external auditory canal from wax. To avoid pushing wax into the ear, do not insert the earpiece too deeply.

When washing your child, be sure to clean the skin behind the ears and lubricate it with baby oil or cream when it dries out.

Wipe your baby's face with a damp cotton pad. First the cheeks, then the nasolabial triangle and chin.

Umbilical wound

Treating the umbilical wound

Treat the umbilical wound 2 times a day with hydrogen peroxide (3%). After this, you can smear it with brilliant green, which will dry it and prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

Groin area

We wash the baby with every diaper change

To avoid skin problems in the groin area when caring for a newborn, follow a few simple rules.

1. Change diapers every 4 hours. If there has been an act of defecation, an extraordinary replacement is mandatory.
2. Every time you change a diaper, wash your baby under running water without soap. Use baby soap only to wash away feces.
3. To protect your baby's skin in the diaper area from the irritating effects of urine, apply a special cream or ointment to it every time after washing.

At the pharmacy you will find a fairly wide selection of these products. Be sure to use them. And you will avoid many common problems affecting the skin of a newborn.

Skin folds

Lubricate skin folds with baby oil

Use decoctions of medicinal herbs to bathe a newborn

“The chlorinated water that comes out of our taps can irritate a baby's skin. Therefore, we advise you to use boiled water with small additions of decoctions of medicinal herbs for bathing during the first and even second months of his life. It could be chamomile, string, oak bark or celandine, ” advises Marina Becherbievna.

To prevent irritation after a bath, it is very useful to wipe your baby’s skin with special baby oil, which is now sold in pharmacies.

You can use Vaseline oil, even sunflower or olive oil, but it must first be sterilized, that is, boiled over a fire.

If a child's skin is prone to high humidity , then baby powders that dry it out are more useful.

It is especially good to treat folds with powder where the skin sweats the most and moisture accumulates.

You can wash babies with regular running water in the shower, but for very sensitive skin it is also better to finish rinsing with water with herbs.

Bathing is carried out daily. At this point, parents should be prepared:

• baby bath;
• water thermometer;
• baby towel;
• baby cream, powder and Vaseline oil;
• means for treating the umbilical wound;
• cotton buds;
• light hat and socks;
• diapers.

When washing the girl , hold her so that the perineum is at the top and the water flows from front to back - then the flora from the intestines will not get into the urinary tract.

As soon as diaper rash appears on the baby’s skin, you need to immediately put the baby in the bath or wash it with water and a weak solution of potassium permanganate, or with the same herbal decoctions. Then treat the affected area with baby powder.

The herbal decoction must be fresh. We recommend that mothers prepare it in the morning and pour it into a large thermos, then you will always have this healing remedy at hand.

Boys can be held on your arm in any position convenient for you, but most often - tummy down.

What oil to use for diaper rash?

The most popular oils for the treatment of diaper rash in newborns are:

• Sunflower. To combat mild inflammatory processes, regular refined oil is used - it is affordable and safe.
• Olive. An excellent natural antiseptic that has an astringent and softening effect. Vaseline oil is used not only for diaper rash: its antimicrobial properties are strong enough to overcome the manifestations of a bacterial infection, such as eczema or psoriasis.
• Vaseline. It is a safe, odorless and tasteless mineral substance that does not contain harmful or toxic compounds. Just like olive oil, it has antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and softening properties. Vaseline oil for diaper rash can be used on the delicate skin of a newborn without fear of harming his health. It treats not only diaper rash, but also streptoderma, and is an excellent preventive measure.
• Sea buckthorn. Vegetable oil, which can be purchased at any pharmacy, is famous not only for its ability to quickly cope with inflammatory processes and heal wounds, but also for pain relief. Orange berries contain trace elements, flavonoids, organic acids and vitamins, the combination of which allows the skin to instantly regenerate. Strong antioxidant and immunomodulator. Sea buckthorn oil also eliminates skin damage from fungi of the genus Candida. The effect of its use can be assessed the very next day.

Is it possible to apply oil to diaper rash? The question is quite common and quite logical, because it covers the inflamed skin of a newborn with a film that protects it from contact with irritants, but at the same time prevents the natural evaporation of moisture in the surface of the epidermis.

In fact, vegetable oil therapy does not always give the desired result, and sometimes even aggravates the situation when there is individual intolerance, too sensitive skin or an infection.

Therefore, any step to combat diaper rash should be discussed with a dermatologist to avoid complications.

Clean the spout

The mucous secretion in the nasopharynx is secreted differently in each baby, and if one child needs to clean his nose two or three times a day, then another needs it less often.

This is done with a regular cotton swab. It is best, of course, to buy special sticks with such tampons on both ends.

But you can use the proven “grandmother’s” method - wrap cotton wool onto an ordinary match or other thin stick, wooden or plastic, but not metal.

The stick should not be sharp at the end, and there should be enough cotton wool to eliminate any risk of injury from the stick to the surface being cleaned. The cotton wool should be secured so that it does not come off the stick and remain in the baby’s nasal passages.

Under no circumstances should a cotton swab be inserted deep into a child’s nose. Mom should remove only those crusts that have formed on visible areas of the nasal passages.

If the crusts have already dried out and stuck to the mucous membrane, then never try to pick them off.

In such cases, a cotton swab should be moistened with oil - a special one that is used to care for baby’s skin, or a regular vegetable oil.

Sunflower or, say, olive oil must be sterilized before the procedure. It is best if you boil a certain amount of vegetable oil in advance and keep it in a sterile bottle for such purposes. Under the influence of the oil, the crusts in the nose will soften, and removing them will not be difficult for you.

Take care of your hair

, crusts can be found on the heads of infants, where they have hairs . Sometimes they are formed as a result of intense exfoliation of the epithelium, and can often be manifestations of diathesis.

Mothers try to remove them as quickly as possible - with combs, brushes, even with their fingers. Under no circumstances should this be done.

What is allowed? After washing your child's head, when it is still damp, take a cotton swab, dip it in boiled oil and very carefully move the swab against the hair growth. In this case, the crusts soften and some of them can be removed. Do not try to remove the crust at one time , otherwise you will injure the baby’s skin, and “sores” will begin to form even more severely. After a few sessions, if you are careful enough, the skin on your baby's head will become clear.

Trim marigolds

In no case should you trim your nails to the very “root” ; in such cases, the risk of injury to your fingers is especially great.

For any accidental injury, apply a cotton swab soaked in alcohol or any other disinfectant available in your first aid kit to the affected area. But it’s better, of course, not to let it come to that.

Care for the umbilical wound.

On average, a newborn's umbilical wound heals in about one and a half to two weeks. During this period , it is not recommended to use cotton pads and swabs to avoid small fibers getting into the wound that has not yet healed.

If you do not treat the wound, it may become inflamed. Before the remainder of the umbilical cord falls off, it must be treated with an antiseptic solution. This could be hydrogen peroxide or chlorhexidine. Treatment must be carried out daily.

Daily morning care

After discharge, every morning of a newborn baby should begin with washing. To do this, a cotton pad is dipped in boiled warm water and squeezed out, after which it is wiped with a damp pad:

• Baby's face.
• Baby eyes. You should start from the outer edge of the eye towards the nose. Movements should be soft without pressure. A separate disc should be used for each eye.
• Baby ears. You need to wipe both behind the ears and the sink itself.
• Baby's neck.

In addition, the mother should examine the baby's skin daily for inflammation and redness. When diaper rash appears, the baby is recommended to take air baths and special cosmetics.

Caring for a newborn baby is not easy : new parents will need time to become a habit of caring for their baby. However, communication with the baby brings a huge amount of joy and smiles, and compliance with the basic principles of the above procedures allows him to develop immunity.

Content

The birth of a first child is a step into a completely new life for young parents. And from the first minutes, they are faced with natural questions, the answers to which come only with time. One of them is caring for a newborn, his skin, or more precisely, how to protect the folds of a baby from irritation, diaper rash, etc. Moms learn their first skills in the maternity hospital, when nurses tell them what to do and how to do it. But caring for the baby does not end there, and most procedures will have to be performed at home for many more months.

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• What do you need to buy for the birth of your baby and how to properly pack things for the baby?
• Using ACC during breastfeeding: doctors’ recommendations on how to take it correctly without harm to the baby
• How to choose the right first bottle for your baby

In the whirlwind of worries, parents sometimes simply forget about the simplest things, and therefore are even more afraid of harming their baby. If you forget about folds, the risk of developing dermatitis, prickly heat or diaper rash increases several times. As a result, the newborn will be capricious, because such irritations cause pain, and their treatment is not the fastest and easiest process.

Why you need to take care of folds

Hygiene for a newborn baby involves daily care of the entire body, and not just the navel and diaper area. Even when you bathe your baby every day, natural discharge accumulates in his folds, even behind his ears. In addition, if the baby burps while lying down, milk may flow onto the neck and ears. Parents of thin children usually believe that such problems do not concern them, but in fact, even they have folds.

Accordingly, even in the tiniest folds, in the groin, behind the ears, any pollution tends to accumulate, because the baby is not moving yet, and the discharge cannot be ventilated or accidentally wiped off with clothes. And the accumulation of contaminants leads to irritation of the baby’s delicate skin. And then, like a snowball, the problems only grow. It is to avoid these that it is extremely important to keep the folds clean.

Other causes of irritation in folds

As a rule, hygiene of skin folds consists of daily inspection of them and wiping them with a damp cotton swab. Then the skin is wiped dry and lubricated with oil.

How to determine the symmetry of folds at home

1. If the baby has more serious health problems (difficulty breathing, abnormal heart rhythm), the doctor may not immediately pay attention to the symmetry of the folds. And healthy babies don’t always receive 100% specialist attention, so you can start exploring your newborn on your own.
2. To begin, place him on the table with his back, bend his knees at a right angle, then try to carefully stretch the legs, placing a book or any other object with a flat surface under them. Check the length of both legs. Repeat the same thing when you turn the baby onto his stomach, try not to cause discomfort and pain to the newborn with awkward movements.
3. Watch your baby's sensations, listen for any clicks. If the baby is sick, his folds will not only be uneven and asymmetrical, they will have different depths.

Rules of care

From the above, you can derive simple rules for caring for the skin of newborns:

• When wiping the folds from dirt, they should be thoroughly dried and lubricated with oil.
• The baby's clothes should be appropriate for his age and be spacious enough. For the tiniest ones, choose undershirts and bodysuits with the seams facing out.
• The diaper should be changed at least once every three hours. The same should be done with diapers if the baby is on the bed without clothes. Of course, this does not mean that you should get up at night and regularly change the baby’s clothes: if the child is sleeping, then nothing is bothering him.
• After each bath, you should carefully wet your entire body, especially your baby’s folds.
• You need to check the baby's skin regularly - several times a day, when you are carrying the baby in your arms, changing clothes, or just playing.
• If you feel that the baby is sweating, be sure to change him. Try to choose outfits for your little miracle according to the weather - more for a jacket than for yourself.
• If possible, leave the baby undressed so that the skin can breathe: for infants, air baths are also hardening procedures.

Homemade recipes for diaper rash using oils

With all the abundance of drugs, many mothers in the fight against diaper rash in a newborn baby prefer natural vegetable oil. The most common way to use it is to use it yourself at home: boil it and regularly smear it on the affected areas of the skin.

The website supermams.ru offers multi-component recipes where the ingredients complement each other.

Olive oil, yogurt and baking soda for diaper rash

Olive oil for diaper rash works great when combined with yogurt and baking soda. Take a couple of tablespoons of natural yogurt, 1 tbsp. l. baking soda and 1 tsp. olive oil, already boiled in advance.

There is no need to mix them: you need to use all the ingredients separately in a certain sequence:

1. After you have bathed your child, you need to carefully spread natural yogurt on his diaper rash and leave it for 5-7 minutes.
2. Rinse the treated area with water and let it dry or gently dry it with a diaper.
3. Sprinkle the same area lightly with soda.
4. After an hour, apply olive oil to the areas where the newborn’s skin comes into contact with the diapers.

Repeat the procedure twice a day.

Yeast Infection Oil Blend

If the skin lesion is caused by a fungus of the genus Candida, then diaper rash may look like chicken pox or acne. In this case, the combination of tea tree oil and coconut oil, which have a pronounced antifungal effect, helps well.

Take 2 tbsp. l. coconut oil and boil it in a water bath. When it cools to room temperature, add 3-4 drops of tea tree ether to it. Mix everything well, otherwise the essential oil may burn the baby's delicate skin. Yeast diaper rash should be smeared with this mixture 2-3 times a day.

Products for treating infant skin

Traditionally, oil is a universal remedy for dry baby skin, so with proper care, this product is enough to keep the baby’s skin clean and healthy.

How to care for a baby if irritation does appear? You should show your child to a doctor to rule out serious skin diseases and to more accurately understand what exactly caused the irritation.

Among these are:

• Diaper dermatitis is an allergic reaction to diapers. Redness is localized in the area of ​​the inguinal folds. As a rule, it appears when diapers are not changed on time, which happens in cases where parents want to save money, because the cost of disposable panties today is quite high. If the doctor is sure that the baby’s redness is diaper dermatitis, they will prescribe procedures using Bepanten, creams containing zinc, as well as air baths. You will not need baby oil during treatment.
• Diaper rash is a bright red irritation that can look like sores, cracks, or just a rash. These can occur both in the groin and in the armpits, in the neck folds, and in the bends of the legs and arms. Most often, they occur in the absence of proper care at an early age of the baby, while he does not move, or is regularly dressed inappropriately for the weather. They are treated in the usual way - with a cotton swab dipped in boiled water and baby oil. Instead of water, you can use herbal infusions if the baby is not allergic to herbal ingredients. If diaper rash is advanced and the redness has turned into ulcers and wounds, it is recommended to lubricate them with ointments that contain panthenol to speed up the healing of the irritation.
• Heat rash occurs when the baby is dressed excessively warmly and the clothes do not allow the skin to breathe. Such irritation may also occur when using synthetic clothing. Usually, such redness goes away on its own if you regularly leave the baby without any clothes. Miliaria can be distinguished by small blisters. Obviously, the wounds may be wet when they begin to burst. For this reason, in this case it is recommended to sprinkle the skin with talcum powder.

Why process folds?

Parents often do not know how to smear the folds of a newborn and why it should be done at all. However, the importance of this daily hygiene procedure cannot be underestimated. It is necessary to treat problem areas in order to:

• Avoid diaper rash;
• Do not allow the delicate baby skin to dry out;
• Notice in time the onset of an allergic reaction or any irritation;
• Clean the baby's skin from dirt and sweat.

Usually, breastfed or bottle-fed infants tolerate this procedure well.

Diaper rash

If diaper rash occurs, you can consult your pediatrician. He will tell you how to lubricate the folds of newborns when this problem occurs. Diaper rash usually appears if the skin does not breathe for a long time (for example, the baby’s diaper has not been changed for a long time). This leads to redness of the skin folds and causes the baby to feel severe discomfort.

Overdrying

In winter and autumn, when steam heating batteries operate at home, the air in city apartments can be very dry. This leads to drying out of the baby's skin. Dry skin can crack, and various infections can easily enter the body through microcracks. Treating folds with a moisturizer will help quickly cope with this problem and improve the protective functions of the baby’s skin. As moisturizers, you can use a variety of oils and creams intended for babies in their first year of life.

Moisturizers will help prevent dryness

General recommendations

Of course, you don’t have to lubricate your baby’s skin throughout his childhood - sooner or later he will stretch out and the folds will go away. The problem remains in children who are too plump, for whom it is generally difficult to move, and they remain sedentary for a long time, which only contributes to the accumulation of impurities in the skin folds, because the skin will not be ventilated and wiped on clothes as much as in more active babies.

By about 6 months, caring for the baby will become easier, and sometimes even by 4 months, mothers note that handling the baby becomes easier and easier. How to care for a child who has become more active?

• Start with daily bathing, but do not forget that you should not use soap every day, as it dries out the skin to a certain extent and makes it vulnerable to various factors. As a rule, irritation on such surfaces occurs more often.
• Inspection of the body should be carried out as regularly as before, but now there is no need to lubricate all the folds with oil - it will now be wiped off on clothes, because the baby is moving more and more.
• The older the baby gets, the less he needs to be wrapped. However, there is no need to overdo it with clothes even at an earlier age, but as activity increases, it is important to ensure that the baby is comfortable, otherwise heat rash can occur at any age.
• It is still important to monitor the condition of the skin under the diaper, because it is unlikely that it will be possible to refuse them before the year. In summer, try to keep your baby naked longer to allow the body to breathe. In winter, you can also take air baths if the apartment is warm. But do not forget about the proper level of humidity so that the baby’s skin does not dry out. The only thing that might get easier is the frequency of changing diapers. But still, make sure that the baby does not stay in already filled panties for a long time.

In general, there is nothing complicated in caring for a baby: it is only important to develop a certain regime for yourself, and all procedures will be easy. Remember that there is no need to carry out these when the newborn is capricious or crying: a sharp change in temperature during bathing, undressing or rubbing with oil can only worsen his mood.

Asymmetrical folds on the baby's legs

After birth, the child is carefully examined by pediatricians; they study not only breathing and heart rate, but also the condition of the baby’s skin, as well as the location of its folds on the lower extremities. The folds on both legs of the child (groin and knee) should be a reflection of each other or continue one horizontal line. Otherwise, we are talking about a congenital disease - underdevelopment of the hip joint. To accurately determine the cause of the disease, the baby is placed on his tummy and his legs are straightened. If the length of the child’s legs is the same, then there is not enough reason for concern; it takes time for the situation to level out. If the legs are different in size, the baby cannot move them apart, and if this happens, a click is heard inside the joint - this can indicate the onset of an orthopedic deviation.

Parents should immediately contact a specialist. This does not mean that he will immediately diagnose you with dysplasia; it is quite possible that the different leg lengths are partly due to muscle cramps, and the musculoskeletal system has nothing to do with it. But consultation with a doctor is necessary for prevention: if the legs are not in order and the defect is detected too late, the child will limp and his ability to move will be very limited. X-rays help determine an accurate diagnosis. A child up to one year of age should receive consultations with an orthopedist three times: at 1 month, at 3 months and at 6 months.

Asymmetrical folds on the legs, which are identified in the earliest stages, can be smoothed out and allow the baby to be full-fledged and learn to walk correctly.