Kids and Dry Skin

Winter has barely started and we are dealing with dry skin mania at our house. A dermatologist told me to use scent free Vaseline(which is actually pretty hard to find!) My two-year-old has had a rough, red rash around his mouth for weeks. It finally looks better today. We have also used Eucerin lotion and Lanolin to cure his dry skin. Is anyone else dealing with this? What works for you? And how often do you give your kids your kids a bath? I have been trying to do every other night, but they love bath time so it often ends up being every night.

FROM ABOUT.COM:

Treating Dry Skin

If your child's skin has already gotten dry, it can help to:

• apply an over-the-counter (OTC) hydrocortisone cream to areas of your child's skin that are red or itchy.
• if you have been using a lotion, switch to a cream or ointment. Remember that in general, the greasier the moisturizer, the better.
• try a different moisturizer, such as Lac-Hydrin (available in both OTC and prescription strengths) or Eucerin Dry Skin Therapy Plus Intensive Repair Creme. These moisturizers contain lactic acid, which promotes hydration of the skin.
• try a "speciality" moisturizer, which contain multiple ingredients and tend to be more expensive than more common brands, and which include:
  • Cutemol Emollient Cream
  • Mustela Dermo-Pediatrics, Stelatopia Moisturizing Cream
  • Vanicream Moisturizing Skin Cream
  • Burt´s Beeswax Lip Balm
• consider using a nonsteroidal prescription cream or lotion, such as Hylira, Mimyx, or Atopiclair, instead of an OTC moisturizer.
• consider using a wet-to-dry skin dressing, for example, by wetting your child's hands, applying a generous amount of moisturizer to them, and then covering them with wet cotton gloves, which you can leave on for a few hours or even overnight. You should also put some dry cotton or rubber gloves over the wet gloves to complete the wet-to-dry dressing. For other areas of your child's skin, you can simply apply a wet gauze over his moisturized skin and then apply another dry gauze over it for a few hours.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Food Allergies on the Rise?

If your kids are in school, they no doubt know someone who has a food allergy. It is everywhere these days. Some people, even some experts, have said the increase is due to more parents reporting the symptoms. But a new study says that is not the only factor. More kids really are getting food allergies. But why? Here's the story from ABC. Do you know anyone with a food allergy? My kindergartner has one child in his class allergic to peanuts.

FROM ABC: New research from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics offers compelling evidence that the spike in childhood food allergies is for real. The study confirmed past findings that the prevalence for childhood allergies has increased at least 18 percent since 1993, and found that the number of visits to a physician, emergency room, or hospital clinic for food allergy-related care has tripled in that time period. Though the study cannot rule out increased reporting by parents as a contributing factor in this trend, allergists and pediatricians agree that food allergies in kids have become a growing concern.

Dr. Clifford Bassett, medical director of the Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, says "it's a mini-epidemic for sure." What has brought on this mini-epidemic? "That is the question that everyone wants to know the answer [to] and so far there is only speculation as to why," says Burks.

One theory is that certain foods, like nuts, may be introduced too early to children, perhaps as nut oils in creams or lotions used on infants, Bassett says. "Changes in the environment and food processing" is also "thought to play a part," Burks says. The leading theory explaining the effects of these environmental changes is called the hygiene hypothesis.

This theory "contends that immune systems become over-reactive in very clean environments, [like those] associated with the medicine and hygiene practices [used today]," says Dr. Bill Parker, assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center, and advocate of the hygiene hypothesis.

In these super-clean environments, he says, "the immune system essentially lacks a normal workload... however, [it] does what it is built to do, and finds something to attack, often directing its attention toward such harmless things as pollen grains ... even healthy food."

But whether it's exposure to certain foods too early or exposure to germs too late, once a child has an allergy, "the number one treatment is education [and] preventing reactions," Bassett says.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Telling kids about Ghosts

This new study goes against what I have always been told and I don't think I will use the recommendation. I don't like the idea of telling a kid there is such a thing as monsters and then later on telling them that isn't true. It rubs me the wrong way.

Then again, maybe I am being a hypocrite. I do think you can compare the study to things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We tell kids there is this "fantasy"until they hit a certain age. Then we say, "Oh yah, that wasn't true." Don't get me wrong, I love the excitement and everything that comes with Santa, but I do feel strange fibbing to the kids.

What do you think about this sleep study?

FROM CNN: A new study in the journal Child Development suggests that reassuring kids by telling them scary images aren't real is helpful for those around 7 and up, but for the younger ones it may not be preferred. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that when preschoolers get scared, they prefer to think of the fantastical threat as "nice."

Children ages 4, 5, and 7 were asked questions about stories involving a protagonist of the same gender encountering real and imaginary creatures such as bears, snakes and dragons. They found that the girls tended to suggest that the protagonist avoid the creatures, while boys wanted to attack them.

The study's recommendation that may seem counterintuitive to parents is that even though 4-year-olds recognize the difference between fantasy and reality, they would rather be comforted by a positive pretense than by the notion that "it's not real."

In other words, if a child believes there's a boogie monster under the bed, parents should say that it's friendly or "wants to play" in the heat of the moment, rather than dismissing the fear by saying it's all in the child's head, they said. Later, when he or she has calmed down, parents can explain that the monster was not real, the study authors say.

Dawn Huebner, a psychologist in Exeter, New Hampshire, and author of "What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety," disagrees. If children are old enough to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, they should learn to cope with the idea that the image that haunts them is not real.

Parents can teach their children how to differentiate fears in their heads from actual danger, she said. Concepts such as "false alarms" can help kids understand that the fear they feel does not mean there is an actual threat, and that they can reassure themselves.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.