Infantile Eczema

Our daughter was born on the 23rd September at 6lb 3oz’s. She had thick black hair, deep blue eyes and milky cream skin. She was beautiful, and of course we were overjoyed. 

It started when she was about 3 months of age, her skin started getting dry and she developed bad cradle cap that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. I wasn’t too worried but I went to my health visitor who gave me some E45 cream, but her skin still got dryer. I noticed that she would scratch the back of her head and she started waking up in the mornings with tiny cut marks on her skin where she had scratched during the night. I took her back to the health visitor and asked her if it was eczema. She said that she thought it was, she looked a little sad and I thought then that she had suspected eczema but had not wanted to give a voice to her suspicions. There is no eczema or allergies or anything like that in either of our families and we just presumed it would be the same for our daughter, so we were a little surprised when she developed the condition and we certainly had no idea of what it actually was or how to help her. 

Things quickly got worse, the skin on her face became red and angry looking and was often weepy, and her whole body except her back became very dry and crusty at the folds of the skin. There were areas on her head where patches of her lovely dark hair were missing from her incessant scratching. It was worse in the mornings until we had bathed her in her special oils and creamed her all over. I would wake up in those days and the first thing I would do was look at her cheeks and feel so frustrated and scared when I saw her that way, I felt desperate as I had no idea what was happening to my baby or how to help her.