Baby Acne?

[MEcatlady17]

Hi Ladies,
I hope everyone is enjoying their sweet babies! My DD is 6 1/2 weeks old now and I cannot believe how fast she is growing. She developed some baby acne at around 4 or 5 weeks. Her forehead is cleared up, but she developed a pimply rash on her neck and top of her chest. I wondered if maybe this was actually heat rash as it is now clearing up. However, her cheeks are terrible! They looked better last night but this morning they are red and irritated looking and feel very dry. I was sure she just had acne but keep stressing that she has eczema. All the pics of eczema I found online didn't look like her face, but I don't know if it is normal for acne to develop dryness or look red between the bumps. I know she is at the prime acne age...

okay I am rambling...

What do you think, how do you detect whether it is normal baby acne or something to be concerned about? I started putting a homemade baby balm (beeswax, olive oil, vit E) on the dry areas. I also have some aquaphor I used yesterday which may be why it looked better last night.

Does anyone have real life baby pics of acne and eczema that I could compare? Her well baby check isn't for another week and a half and I don't want to go in for nothing.

pics from today..shininess is from the lotion. Notice her forehead, nose, mouth area are clear. The spots on the neck are clearing up and used to be on the back of her head (completely gone now)...maybe was heat rash?

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_1220.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_1217.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_1223.jpg

[mamakims]

Sophie is a day younger than your LO and looks exactly the same. Some days it's less noticeable but her skin feels like sandpaper but other days it's quite red just like in your pics. I don't put anything on it (stopped putting oil on her acne patches) in case it irritated it more which now that I've stopped it's finally started to settle down (but still there and still rough).

Right now Sophie has the worst cradle cap out of all my kids. It's on her eyelids, all over her scalp and behind her ears. Poor bug looks pretty rough, I hsould have done the newborn pics at 3 weeks before any of this appeared! lol

I'll upload some pics onto my blog and put a link in.

[mamakims]

http://mamakims.blogspot.com/2010/03...blog-post.html

Here's some pics I had uploaded of Sophie. They aren't very red but hers did look very similar to your dd's.

ETA:: the first pic is her most recent where you can see her baby acne but it's not red anymore. It's starting to fade. The second one is when it really started to pop up everywhere (look at her little chest to see what i mean!).

[JayJay]

Toooootally typical baby acne, mama. Bella had it too - first on her chin, then that cleared up; then her forehead - then that cleared up; then her cheeks - then that cleared up and then her scalp and now it's almost completely gone except for a few here and there. It just makes the rounds all over the face and head and then *boom* it's gone! Don't worry - I did too at the time, but I needn't have XXX

[MEcatlady17]

Thanks mamakims! It is helpful to see. I was sure it was just acne, but started to freak myself out over how dry it feels and the redness today. I will try an elimination diet if I have to, but I am really hoping it clears up on its own (mostly for selfish reasons as I have no impulse control with foods I love- particularly dairy ).

[organicpapayamama]

ddc crashing here, first off ladies, your babies are beautiful!!!

second, although ds never had baby acne, I have found that breast milk is the one quick fix for everything. Although DS is almost 2 now, every time he has a bump on his skin I have been able to express a little colostrum and I leave it overnight on his skin and after about 2 days its gone. This works well for eye styes too.

[StrawberryFields]

It is the perfect time for baby acne and my dd had some pretty rough feeling pimply patches like that too. But I will say that my niece had a face rash very much like your dd's and it turned out to be eczema. But with her it started and persisted and persisted throughout her first year with many trips to the dermatologist to get it under control. So IMO you can relax not stress about it, and if it seems to persist then talk to your doctor about your concerns. It is probably just acne! I found that breastmilk did help with my dd's too, but mostly just waiting it out is what did the trick.

[MEcatlady17]

Thanks ladies!

I posted over on the allergy forum and learned some interesting stuff about allergies. I have several allergies so now I am looking into the role genetics play. I'm applying breastmilk to her skin and aquaphor on the dry spots. I'll wait it out until her 2 month check...lay off the dairy just in case. Her ears were dry and crusty this morning which makes me worry it is eczema (as well as some baby acne on her face). The acne may have been masking the eczema and I would feel terrible if it got really bad and I didn't take care of it properly. She does spit up but I have thought it was related to my OALD and over supply... ah, who knows. She'll either outgrow it or she won't and then we'll know!

[Magistra]

At our one-month appointment, the ped remarked on how Max didn't have any acne, just a little milia, and that baby acne usually shows up around one month. Literally, it started to show up the next day. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have any eczema too; our first son had a few persistent patches that still flare up in dry weather. Of course, I've been off wheat for a couple years now and took myself off cow's milk last week due to colic, so maybe we'll avoid it.