Struggling to keep her baby’s eczema under control, Palesa felt helpless until she finally found the right support
It’s the middle of the night, the baby is crying, and Palesa is desperately Googling for answers. Her beautiful three-month-old is in distress, constantly scratching the once-perfect newborn skin that has erupted in angry, itchy dry patches all over her little face and body.
“It was horrible because she would scratch all night and couldn’t rest,” Palesa recalls. “When I held her to my chest she would try to scratch her face against my clothes.” At its worst, the eczema flare-ups on Kat’s cheeks resembled third-degree burns, painfully red, raw and at risk of infection.
The days brought no relief: while her peers played happily at daycare, Kat was forced to wear mittens to stop her scratching her skin, which prevented her from joining in. “I was so worried that wearing mittens all the time would restrict her development, because babies use their hands to learn,” Palesa says. “She wasn’t involved in any positive play, she was just held while she cried.”
Trying to manage Kat’s eczema was a relentless burden that affected the whole family. Stressed and sleep-deprived, they visited their GP and tried Googling for answers, but encountered a mountain of conflicting information. The family tried eliminating foods from Kat’s diet and even installed a water filtration system in their home after reading that toxins in the water were to blame, but nothing helped.
As South Africans, they also found it impossible to find photos of eczema on dark skin and the materials they were given only pictured pale skin with eczema that looked nothing like their baby’s. Palesa resorted to uploading images of Kat into Google Image Searches to see if there was anybody out there with something similar, but found nothing.
“You’re constantly researching and whatever you try it’s not working – you feel helpless as a parent,” Palesa says.
Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia receives calls on our National Allergy Helpline every day from parents in the same position. Our trained Allergy Educators provide practical advice, evidence-based resources and emotional support, but for every person they reach, there are many more in need of help.
Now a bright and bubbly toddler, Kat still has eczema on her face, hands and feet, but her family has it under control after finally receiving specialist care. It’s no longer as severe as it once was and is being managed effectively with topical steroid creams and ointments. Palesa just wishes she could have received specific eczema advice sooner, rather than wading through masses of misinformation while her baby’s condition worsened.
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