pit cheese

[amygoforth]

What the heck is this stuff?!

Drew has this extra little fold in his arm pit (on both sides) that you really don't see unless you pull his skin down. Buried inside is a buch of whitish gunk. I was giving him a bath a couple weeks ago and I happened to find this little treasure chest. Now that I know it's there I make sure to rinse whenever he gets his bath... but it always seems to come back!

Please tell me Drew isn't the only funky gunky baby on the block. I'm not too concerned about it (Evan had neck cheese when he was tiny)... but I am curious. Could it be yeast?

[witchbaby]

i just found that on m, too! k used to get it under her chin in her folds and it smelled like warm cream cheese. gotta love these fat babies!

[mariposita]

i've been wondering what this is too. i think it's totally normal. we also have lots of lint between his toes and in the creases of his hands. i just wash it well whenever we take a bath.

[IncaMama]

yup, normal. lots of it is prob just dead skin cells. they're not moving around too much so it doesn't have anywhere to go and collects there in the creases. could also be from spit-up.

[Turtlemum]

Hey and check behind their ears too! Scarlett has a little nook there where spit up like to collect - yum!

[birthjunkie27]

Samara's a cheesy baby too.

[Taedareth]

Yep, 100% normal. My midwife calls it "neck scourge." I just bathe him every 2-3 days and make sure to scrub out his neck folds (and armpits) with a soapy cloth. Takes care of the problem for about a day, and then it comes back. That white stuff seems to consist of congealed milk, dead skin cells, and skin oil. We call it the cheese factory.

[IncaMama]

ava always has her hands in little tight fists (such a little crankypants she's always lookin' for a fight! LOL) so she gets lots of gook in there too.

[xmasbaby7]

Yes!! We have it here. Kate had it int he pits so badly, she also had sebborhic dermatitis there. If you see that the folds have a really angry red skin to match, you may want to treat it.

I have tried the natural cure for it, calendula (sp?), but it wasn't really helping, so I used OTC hydro-cortisone twice and the cheese went away and the redness subsided.

Just when I thought she was cheese-free, I discovered it in her neck yesterday!!

[Spark]

What a timely thread! I JUST got a picture of Joie's pit cheese red skin by coincidence. When I saw the pic... I immediately though... ut-oh, mama's not washing you well enough!
http://static.flickr.com/30/88307470_d9a2d684b2.jpg?v=0

[beachcomber]

Heh. Carys gets goop in the folds of her neck. And she likes to collect spit up behind her ears. If I don't catch that right away she gets all funky smelling.

[amygoforth]

Great picture, Claire! That's exactly what Drew's pits look like!

And he also likes to get all crusty with spitup behind his ears... although he hasn't been spitting up as much lately, so that's getting better.

[Jeanne_L]

my babe's got the cheese in his bellybutton! ewwwwwww!!
also in the creases of his hands.