Coping with childhood eczema every single day | ad
This post features an affiliate marketing link. This means I receive a small commission based on sales through that link, denoted with a *. I was gifted Skin Salvation to review. All opinions are my own, unedited and truthful, as always.
When my daughter was four hours old, she was taken into my hospital’s neonatal unit with suspected meningitis. She was administered two types of antibiotics for seven days that undoubtedly saved her life. The only long-lasting effect is that she suffers from childhood eczema.
Reading my blog, you’ll be no stranger to the huge lifestyle change we’ve undergone since I suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum during my son’s pregnancy. It all began with decluttering and progressed into striving to live a minimal, low waste lifestyle free from many of the synthetic chemicals and artifical fragrances we’re exposed to every day. Coping with our daughter’s eczema for four years has been a huge driver of this change.
The daily challenge of managing a child’s eczema and sensitive skin
Based on a review of evidence in 2013, early life exposure to antibiotics was associated to a 40% increase in the risk of developing childhood eczema. In fact, this is something I’ve been aware of all my life. My mother swears that the anitbiotics my sister needed at a few weeks old too also caused her life-long severe eczema. Neither my mother or I would change our choices to treat those dangerous infections (there was no choice really.) Growing up managing my sister’s number of allergies, I should have been one step ahead of this challenge. I wasn’t.
I’ve had six different emollients from my GP in an attempt to keep my daughter’s flare ups at bay. None have helped. I feel like I’ve tried everything on the chemist’s shelves too. When my son was born, her eczema had flared so badly around her mouth that it wept and bled, leaving her skin stuck to the bed sheets each morning. (Those cries will haunt me forever.) Knowing of my sister’s allergies, I took an educated guess my little girl is allergic to paraffin. In the bin went all the paraffin-based emollients I’d been prescribed, and I swapped to the only thing I knew she wasn’t allergic to - the lanolin ointment I’d used when breastfeeding her. It worked. Within two days, after weeks of pain and strife, her skin had healed. But using lanolin wasn’t a long term solution.
Pure lanolin is an incredibly thick ointment, not easily spreadable unless it gets warm - and then it gets everywhere. My sofa is ruined. Many of her clothes had to be binned. Coating her entire body in it was impossible. No three year old wants to stand still for that long. There had to be something else on the market. All I could think was that someone else out there must have gone through this torture. Especially if this is something she’ll have to manage for the rest of her life.
Natural eczema emollient safe for babies and children
I’m always weary to consult ‘Dr Google’ but I was at the end of my rope. So I typed in ‘natural eczema emollient’ and there was an ad for Balmonds. As I do for any new product I’m considering, I ignored the sales and went straight to their ‘How we began’ page. I cried. Here she was, a mother coping with the same daily anguish of childhood eczema as me, who had found her own solution. A natural solution free from the perfumes and parabens my family have been so actively avoiding - Balmonds Skin Salvation*.
Balmonds Skin Salvation
We’ve been using Balmonds Skin Salvation as a daily emollient for three weeks now and have been flare-up free. During this time we’ve been going to weekly swimming lessons, have endured very changeable winter weather (-5° anyone?) and had a chance encounter with face paint, which she reacted to but that didn’t escalate into a full breakout. In four years now, this is the probably the longest she’s gone without bleeding.
I’ve always been sure to use moisturisers that either don’t contain water, or which list ‘aqua’ towards the bottom end of the ingredient list, since wetting and air-drying eczema-prone skin is the worst thing you can do for it. Water obviously ‘waters-down’ an emollient’s texture, and most also contain glycerine (an alcohol) which is what gives those emollients a viscous liquid texture. Being faced with a balm instead of something you can squeeze out a tube does take a little getting used to, but I’ve found it works best to apply Skin Salvation straight after a bath. It’s a thick, beeswax-based balm which I find melts into the skin when it’s lovely and warm. And an added bonus is I’ve had no more ruined clothes or greasy stains on my sofa, and my poor dry hands from all those nappy changes have benefitted too.
If you’d like to try Skin Salvation for yourself, you can enjoy a 20% Balmonds discount using my affiliate link*
The only issue I’ve had with the product is over its packaging - namely the non-recyclable plastic lid. Since embracing a low waste lifestyle, I’ve not been shy to contact companies and let them know my thoughts as a customer over packaging. In fact, for the first time in all my letters and emails, I had a genuine, considered response from Balmonds. They’re currently working with an environmental consultant and researching different, more enviromentally-friendly packaging options. They hope to switch to more sustainable packaging by the end of the year. Music to my ears indeed.
My *Balmonds discount code for 20% off your entire purchase is LAURA20
And please tell me about your experiences, I’m still learning to manage my daughter’s condition and I believe we can learn so much from each other if we share our journeys.
Laura
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