When my daughter was a baby, she developed eczema. The kind that showed up in every crease in her skin and caused major irritation, pain, and night waking. We visited the GP and followed the advice, initially. But since I don't view steroid cream and petrochemical wash as a sustainable solution for my daughter to live with, only for the eczema to remain, I decided to do what western medicine doesn’t ever seem to do, and look for the root cause of the problem, hoping a more natural solution could be found.
Turns out, you can find a sustainable solution to address your child’s eczema naturally: these are the three key secrets to this natural strategy, which worked for her:
• Diet: eliminate food additives and address food intolerances;
• Natural skincare: replace chemicals with tea tree & a good quality natural moisturiser;
• Address gut biome & skin bacterial imbalance.
The key products we used on this journey and found success with are:
- A probiotic proven to be effective for eczema (Lactobacillus rhamnosus);
- A natural antibacterial agent (Tea Tree Oil);
- Natural moisturiser endorsed by the eczema foundation. I use Weleda white mallow moisturiser. For babies and toddlers, moisturise at each nappy change. For older children at least 2-3 times per day.
The key lifestyle changes we adopted on this journey were:
- Identify dietary intolerances that are contributing to the eczema. Keep a food diary and eliminate foods one at a time, then add the food back into the diet and noting the results for a few days to a week after. NB: Keep in mind, it can be 3-4 days after eating the culprit food, before the skin actually flares up.
- Follow an organic low FODMAP and gluten free diet. Avoid vegetables in the Solanaceae Family - also called deadly nightshade vegetables, which contain high amounts of alkaloids and often the root cause of sensitivities and intolerances. Choose whole foods over processed foods, and in particular avoid foods containing artificial additives and chemicals, including food colouring, flavour enhancers, and artificial flavours.
It can be a battle avoiding chemicals in your children’s food and skincare products. Below I’ve summarised 3 of the most common sources to avoid:
#1 Food Additives.
Food colouring is in everything kids want to eat, and flavour enhancers have also found their way into many popular supermarket foods. An example of a flavour enhancer is MSG, which is contained in many savoury soups and snacks, and usually appears under the code 621. There are hundreds of artificial additives. Preservatives are also a common unwanted addition to many foods and have been known to trigger reactions including athsma and eczema.
When we eat foods containing chemicals, our body then must process and eliminate them. If you do choose to purchase snacks and packet foods (processed foods), always ensure they don’t contain food additives (anything with a number).
#2 Marvel/Frozen/Minions shampoos & bath gels that are FULL OF CHEMICALS.
If it's not okay to put Captain America or Elsa on the front of a packet of cigarettes, then it's not okay to put them on the front of a bottle full of chemicals for your child’s skin! I’m dismayed it’s still legal to target kids this way with rubbish for their skin. As a general rule, if it’s got characters on the front, it’s got chemicals in it. These chemicals are usually skin irritants (e.g. surfactants that give the product its ability to create a lather, like cocomidapropyl betaine, or preservatives like phenoxyethanol). These irritate and dry out the skin, undermine the skin’s natural barrier, and upset the balance of microbes and bacteria.
#3 Petroleum based washes and steroid creams.
It's common for parents of kids with eczema to be told they must use unnatural petroleum based washes and steroid creams as their only options to treat their child's eczema. This is absolutely false. Natural anti bacterials such as Tea Tree can be used and have been used for generations to successfully treat skin ailments. Tea Tree oil can be added to the bath. Try 6-10 drops of a high quality pure oil a few times a week during a flare up, followed by 1 week of plain water baths with no soap (not even for washing, wash with plain water only). Repeat until improved.
Probably THE most important step in this strategy is to replenish and rebalance the gut biome. To do this, supplement orally with good bacteria, aka probiotics. For eczema, choose a probiotic containing ’lactobacillus rhamnosus’. Lactobacillus rhamnosus is a strain of bacteria that dramatically influences the diversity and populations of the resident microbiota. It promotes the growth and function of 5 of the 6 strains that make up the core group of bacteria in a healthy, stable microbiota.
Research offers promising evidence that probiotics help to treat childhood atopic dermatitis and allergic diseases specifically. The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends that probiotics may reduce the incidence of atopic dermatitis in at-risk infants. There is preliminary support for treatment of symptoms (AAFP 2008)
Source: US National Eczema Association
To support healthy gut biome it is beneficial to incorporate dietary changes including eating organic whole foods, and eating fermented foods. Avoiding alcohol, greasy, processed foods, food additives (chemicals) is recommended. Balancing and supporting proliferation of gut flora can not only decrease gut inflammation, it has also been shown to have benefits for almost every system in the body, and is beneficial for mental health, skin health, and heart health.
I hope this post has helped with your eczema journey. As parents we have strong intuition about what is best for our kids, and how best to help. Sometimes we are told we’re wrong about that intuition by people who don’t believe in root cause treatments, and prefer to prescribe drugs to wallpaper over the top of issues, rather than treat the underlying cause. I’m glad I stuck to my intuition and freed my daughter from the spiralling effect functional medicine has on eczema sufferers by not treating the cause, and using chemicals which provide no long term solution for the cause of the eczema.
Be your most natural self xx
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