Poor, poor Garrett. Every time I look at his little face and the back of his neck it makes me want to cry. He has this awful rash that has spread all over his face, ears and the front and back of his neck. It is worse on the back of his neck but I wasn’t able to get a picture of that because he was sleeping. These pictures were taken Friday. Today is Saturday (I started this post yesterday but never finished it) and today it is looking a lot better but many of the bumps are still there. The rash is definitely made worse with skin contact, such as his head resting on my forearm when nursing. So I try to keep a burp cloth between his skin and mine. I can’t believe what a warm blooded little guy I have. He stays so warm!
I’m really hoping that this is prickly heat rash because it should clear up in a few days if it is. Otherwise I am assuming that the rash is due to an allergy to me eating dairy and I’ll have to cut dairy out of my diet. His rash looks like all the other prickly heat rashes when I googled it though.
It is kind of weird that he got this rash because I don’t dress him in a lot of clothing, just a onesie. I’ve been keeping him in only a diaper now and have given him a few baths in lukewarm water, which is supposed to help. He does sweat a lot though and prickly heat is caused by blocked sweat glands. For awhile I had used some Eucerin cream on his rash because I read somewhere that it would help with the friction that makes the rash red and “angry” and it helped a lot at first but then made the rash worse because it clogged up his sweat glands even more.
Really hoping I don’t need to cut dairy. :)
Here is my poor sweet boy with his ugly, awful rash.
My guess is that it is a version of normal baby skin adjusting to the outside of the womb world…such as baby acne, etc. Imagine you’ve spent your whole life under water, and then you’ve changed to an entirely different ecosystem. Your skin would need time to adjust. I’ve seen cases of it worse looking than Garrett’s. I could be wrong, of course…
Jessica,
Why not consider completely cutting out the dairy. You’ll see pretty fast if it goes away. While it takes 2 weeks to completely clear dairy, with my milk allergic son, I noticed the excema rashes cleared in about 4 days, but was noticeably better even sooner. If it goes away, you know what it is… I know you have tons of dairy free recipes, but if you need more, email me. Good Luck! Bari
Kristina,
It is definitely not baby acne. I would also guess that a baby with acne more extensive than just a few spots on their forehead or cheeks was not really baby acne. I’m no expert or anything but a rash as extensive as Garrett’s (these pictures didn’t really do justice, especially the back of his neck) would definitely seem abnormal to me as acne. If you’ve seen babies with worse rashes I would guess they were allergic to something or had prickly heat or some other kind of rash and not baby acne. Plus, acne takes a few weeks if not a few months to go away. Garrett’s rash is about 90% gone now and he looks much better. All I’ve done is kept him naked and cool and given him some baths in lukewarm water.
Bari,
If I wasn’t so sure it was prickly heat I would cut out the dairy. In fact before I made this post I initially assumed it was a dairy reaction and cut out the dairy only to do more research and realize that his symptoms more reflected prickly heat rather than a dairy allergy. I resumed dairy and followed the advice for dealing with prickly heat and he is about 90% recovered from the rash. His skin is returning to its beautiful baby softness. I also try to stick with mostly raw dairy as well but if I notice symptoms of dairy intolerance I will definitely cut all pasteurized dairy and if I see no improvement then I’ll cut all raw dairy as well
what treatment did you do? my 6 weeker has this.
hello my baby has this and it looks just like that it is just heat rash i live in California and it when from the 60 to the 90 in temp really fast so yea i just give her a nice cool bath before bed and dont put clothes on her and it goes away in least then a week or 2
Very nice article on acne. Thanks for the great tips!
My daughter had the same look. I think it was related to the vaccine (Hep-B with 12.5 mcg mercury). She is autistic.
Thank you Jim. I am sorry to hear about your daughter.
My son is completely unvaccinated (he is now 9 1/2 months old) so this rash/prickly heat was not caused by a vaccine. He now has severe food allergies though (including many foods that cause him anaphylaxis) so it makes me wonder if this “rash” was a tip off to this.
Hi, thanks for posting these pics. My 6wk old daughter has this rash and we decided it is prickly heat. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far and while she has had baby acne and millia off and on since birth she became really bumpy the last few days. yesterday she started rubbing at her eyes (lots of bumps all around them and on her eyelids) and the skin turned quite red and then they swelled up. needless to say, it was awful. we put in an air conditioner ( the cool cloth wipedowns and laying naked on a cotton blanket wasn’t getting her cooled down enough, even with a fan in the window) and today she is looking better, but still has some welts from where she initially rubbed scratched at her eyes before I got some mittens on her.
My daughter is breast fed. I have Celiac’s disease and follow a very strict gluten as well as dairy free diet. I really don’t think this is an allergy issue. just wanted to share. thanks again!
I came across these pictures trying to find out whether my 4 year old daughter has a heat rash. although her rash does not look like this, my three year old had a similar rash when he was vaccinated as an infant. i was told it was a result of his measles vaccine. the rash started showing within 24 hours of his shot. i realize that your baby wasn’t vaccinated but this may be of help to others who are searching for answers. good luck to all!
my 14 mth old has this same rash? from reading what you said, it sounds like i might need to take dairy out?
I will say that my daughter’s face and head looked just like this when she was 2 to 2.5 weeks old. It was a severe dairy protein allergy. Ped even tried to say it was baby acne. One week after I went off dairy totally, the rash cleared right up. I have had to keep her off dairy and soy and she is now 8 months old and still not yet outgrown it.
Thanks for posting this. My daughter developed a rash almost identical. Doc told us to use Eucerin which we did vigorously. It didn’t seem to help. Thats when I started researching it. It makes sence now. I live in FL and at the beginning of the summer season is when her rash became real bad. She has always been a warm baby. Once again, thanks.
My middle son also had this, and it appeared within 24 hours of his 4-month vaccines–and lasted for 10 months on his face and body, and continued for years on his face and elbows. I tried going off dairy and gluten while nursing him (he had only breastmilk for 10 months), in case it was a food sensitivity or allergy, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. The pediatrician called it baby eczema, but the dermatologist said it was clearly a drug rash. The only drugs he’d received were vaccines.
Oh, and it was much worse with heat–but it was not a heat rash.
However, when I had to go off gluten myself, 9 years later (which made the entire family almost gluten-free, say, gluten-lite), his rash finally went away. When we tried gluten on him (twice), it returned with a vengeance. He is now gluten-free and rash-free.
So I think there is a link between vaccines and food sensitivities/allergies.
I really hate to say this, but if your baby was born in the hospital (rather than a home-birth or at a midwife clinic), and was ever out of your sight, it is quite possible that they gave him vaccines without your permission.
That is exactly what they did with my middle son. The nurse brought in the paper for me to sign, I said, “no, I do not want him to receive any vaccines until he’s a little older,” and she sort of looked uncomfortable and said, “I’m sorry, we already gave him the shots while he was in the nursery.”
When my third baby was born, while we were in the hospital, I never let her out of my arms unless my husband was there to hold her. The nurse actually yelled at me, and said that I wasn’t allowed to fall asleep with her in my arms.
Just wondering–are you on any medications that might be getting into your milk? Or were you given rhogam before the birth?
Also, is there any possibility that it is a viral rash? Did it appear 4 or 5 days after a mild fever? (It doesn’t look like the viral rashes I’ve seen, but just trying to rule out all obvious possibilities.)
Hi Alison,
Thanks for the comment. Garrett was born at home and has never had a vaccine. I had a very uneventful and unmedicated pregnancy, etc. I was also not on any after his birth. This particular rash I do believe was just heat rash.
However, Garrett does have multiple severe food allergies that we are dealing with. He is now 13 months old.
Thank you so much for posting those pictures. I’m a new mom to a two month year old and my son developed identical rashes when he was about a month. I am so careful with him so I didn’t know what it could be. Ive been vegan for almost my whole life but (unfortunately) I gave my son milk formula because I was told he would need it. I have since switched to soy based formula. He still gets the same rashes on his face and his back but not as bad. I put pure petroleum on him 3 times a day. I dont know it this makes it better but i dont want to stop in case it is. It’s heart breaking seeing such your beautiful baby like this. Did you ever find out the cause?
The funny thing about this picture is that all three of my kids were breastfed and they all had the same thing. I live on a tropical island and I’m not entirely sure if it is or was heat rash with a combination of infant acne.. I now have a three week old and his looks just like the baby here. I have been trying to keep him cool and give him cool baths.. I also found that terry clothing and blankets and material such as mink irritated his skin even more.. The doctor told me his rash was some sort of dermatitis from me making him sleep on his milk soaked blankets or from the milk and saliva getting on his face.. WHAT AN IDIOT! does he really think I take care of my child like this?? IF that was the case then how did it get on his head?? All I’m saying is , with a newborn , it’s trial and error.. Parents we know whats best.. stick to your intuition. If you should go see a doctor and you don’t believe what they say, there is always other doctors.. I can’t wait for this strain of rash to go away..