Posts Tagged ‘cradle cap’
Natural Cradle Cap Treatments
Nov
At about four weeks old, Kahlan started getting some tiny spots of flaky stuff on her scalp. In the beginning they were minor and small, however by six weeks the flakes covered her little scalp no matter how often we did or didn’t wash her hair.
After a bit of Google-ing and a visit to the pediatrician it was official, Kahlan had developed cradle cap. Cradle Cap is a flaky dandruff like condition of the scalp that is relatively common in infants. It doesn’t cause any harm, she didn’t even seem to notice, but hours of nursing and staring at the scaly flakes was driving me nutty.
The pediatrician recommended a product called Mustela. After checking it’s ingredients on CosmeticsDatabase.com for toxicity concerns, I found it’s high 7 out of 10 was unacceptable… So now what?
Being overly aware of environmental contaminants and the risks of all the chemicals we humans tend to put in and on our bodies, I wanted to find something both effective and more natural. Firstly, I read that rubbing a bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the afflicted scalp, letting it sit for 5 minutes and then washing it out, would break up the offending flakes allowing them to be brushed out. After trying this method a few times I did find it effective in removing the scales. However, the heavy oil was difficult to wash out and left her hair greasy and smelling like an Italian restaurant.
During the last trimester of my pregnancy I had purchased a bottle of Motherlove Birth & Baby Oil to use for perineal massage. The oil is made from certified organic apricot oil and lavender. It worked great during pregnancy for a belly oil, perineal massage and any dry skin. I had even used it a few times on Kahlan for infant massage. One day, on a whim, I was reading the label and noticed it listed treating cradle cap as a suggested use.
Knowing it was already safe and natural, rating a nice “0″ on Cosmetics Database, I decided to try it out at her next bath. Following the same routine as with the olive oil, I rubbed it in, washed it out and brushed her hair dry, waiting to see the result. Being a lighter, thinner oil, it was much easier to rinse out. The apricot oil worked as well as the olive oil, leaving her scalp moisturized and flake free. Even better, she now smelled clean and sweet with hints of apricot and lavender, without looking like a greaser!
If your unhappy dealing with your infants cradle cap using the recommended cleansers too, I highly recommend trying Motherlove. If you decide it doesn’t give you the results your after, it still makes a wonderful massage oil.
Tags: cradle cap, Motherlove, Mustela, Olive Oil
Parenthood : Paranoid
Nov
Remember the SAT word association pairs? You were given two words like dog:cat and then had to know that chicken:man was equivalent because the association was the same number of legs or some other nonsense. I’m not sure if parenthood:paranoid ever came up, but I sure hope I answered something meaning they have more in common than just starting with P and ending in D.
Everyday of being a new Mommy is an adventure that likely would end in the cute “lesson learned” minute if it were a sitcom. But not every lesson is cute or humorous. The first close call, no matter how unlikely or easily resolved still shakes you to your core. It is one thing to face your own mortality head on, to then quiver in fear soaked panic at the very thought your child may get so much as thier first cold let alone be hospitalized. Surgery? Someone grab the smelling salts…
What started as a minor rash for our new nephew, a mere three weeks younger than Kahlan, quickly turned our entire familly into paranoid fearfull wrecks. In the week following Dev and his Mommies stay with us, his little baby rash developed first into larger pimple sized pustuals and then took over his little system. 2 weeks after thier visit we get a call… Dev has been hospitalized, he has a high fever, some kind of infection and a silver dollar sized absess on his chest. It might be MRSA.
Pre-parenthood response:
Offer to rush down to help in any way posible. Visit them in the hospital.
Post-parenthood response:
Offer heartfelt condolences and best wishes for a positive outcome. Jump on Internet and research MRSA. Have a panic attack becuase that crap is super contagious and your newborn just spent a week snuggling up for cute pictures with the now hospitalized cousin. Do more research. Inspect every inch of our newborn. Call back to see how cousin is doing, ask if they know what it is and if it’s contagious for the hundreth time. Inspect newborn again. Debate with spouse if what we thought was just regular old baby acne is realy something else. Second guess your eyes, your instincts and every tiny blemish for hours. Break down and call the pediatrition on a Sunday morning in tears convinced your baby is next. Ban anyone from coming near the baby or visiting who could have had contact. Consider cancelling Thanksgiving. Then consider cancelling every familly get together for the foreseable future, moving to a remote hermit location and installing a germ proof baby sized habit trail.
Get the call – NOT MRSA, just some unavoidable bad luck bacterial infection that unfortunatly absessed.
Cancel plane tickets to Alaska wilderness. Call off code-red. Reduce panic attack to
Tags: cradle cap, MRSA, newborn, skin
