Is your baby product safe?

Hello everyone! It has been a very challenging start of the year 2019 for me. It has to do with a lot of emotional and physical stamina dealing with life matters that I chose to focus on. Having said that,  I hope each one of you had a fruitful and positive start of the year. Today, I would like to write about baby and baby products as my first write up for the year. Please sit back and relax and I hope you enjoy reading this piece of article of mine.

Did you know that new born baby’s skin is so delicate and dry? New born babies have shrivelled looking skin, just like as if you have soaked your skin in water for about more than 10 minutes. New born baby’s skin is dry. They need extreme gently baby skin wash, so gentle that even plain water will do a good job in their daily bath routine since babies do not perspire in their first few weeks of life. As I was growing up, I was told that in order to make babies feel comfortable, they need to be bathed and to apply baby powder on them. That will keep the baby “dry”. Just how much drier, I wonder? Back those days, internet and google were unheard of and my upbringing was the type that I wasn’t allowed to ask questions but just to obey what parents said. Yes…I know… I’m of good age but I’m still young at heart!

Our environment has become more polluted as the years rolls by which is why you can see many cosmetics sold on the market that focus on “fixing” damage skin, to counter free radicals, pollutions and the likes. Unfortunately our babies born in this era are not spared from this either. Baby powder is meant to keep the skin dry by absorbing any perspiration. So if the baby’s skin is already dry, what do you think applying the baby powder to their skin will do? Yup….makes the skin drier. Which will lead to fragile skin that can easily breaks as well as dry skin (obviously) that will cause itchiness. If the baby is a few months old, he or she will be able to scratch themselves due to the itchiness which can cause the top skin layer to break, may cause minor bleeding and if it’s not cleaned properly, infection can occur. Are you able to see the chain of events here? By the way, applying baby powder to the baby’s skin or even yourself will expose either of you to the possibility of inhaling the dusted powder which will be airborne around you. This may cause allergy of dust particle or asthma under prolong exposure to the powder, if such sensitivity occurs which depends on individual.

I hear most people will choose baby products that are scented as they want their tiny ones to smell fresh and delicious. Generally most people will take it for granted that as long as the products made it to the supermarket shelves, they must be safe to use on babies. I have news for you!

Babies organs and immune system will take time to develop its functionality and immunity as the body is continually exposed to the environment. The process may cause the child to fall sick every now and then. However after every episode, the child’s body will come out stronger and the cycle repeats itself. During the 1st two years of the child’s life, the child’s body is very vulnerable. That is why we should refrain from kissing babies as we may just pass on bacteria to them. Our bodies may be immune to the bacteria, but remember, the child has yet to develop that kind of immunity towards that particular bacteria. Same goes to the type of medication that the doctors prescribed. The doctors need to ensure that the medicines can be processed by the child’s body, if not, it may be too much for the child which will cause harm to the child instead. So why am I talking about all this? I’m sure the doctors know what they are doing. Definitely! However my concern is, do you know what you are doing for your child?

Many baby products available in the market contains artificial fragrances, some claim essential oils, synthetic ingredients and the likes. These ingredients can be harmful to children below 2 years of age if the percentage used is not properly supervised. Worse, even a 0.01% of certain fragrance or essential oil may pose risk to the child as the organ such as the liver is not matured yet to process such powerful ingredient. This will mean the toxic will build up in the child’s body system which can lead to a string of other health issues as the child is growing up.

There are other ways to make baby products safe to use and still carry the sweet nice scent in the product. Some natural base ingredients do have its own scent and my favourite to use for babies and young children is hydrosol. It is so gentle and yet effective. I will talk a little bit more about hydrosol in my coming posts.

Then there is this SLS and SLES which has been quite a hot topic recently that are found in most of the personal care range regardless for any age group. SLS in short for Sodium Laureth Sulfate is used in skincare for high cleansing effect. It really does clean off the dirt from the skin very well. However SLS is not able to differentiate between dirt and your skin’s natural oil, therefore it will strip away the skin’s natural oil as well. Imagine baby’s skin which is already in dry state and using baby bath products with SLS. I have explained in earlier paragraphs what can happen to the skin.

So how come there are so many baby products being sold everywhere which are accessible to many people if the products contain not so safe ingredients? The Ministry of Health (MOH) allowed the registration of the products which is deemed safe base on the list of ingredients submitted. MOH do not require for every product applied for registration to be tested. MOH only relies on the information submitted on paper by the seller. These products falls under Cosmetics category. It is different for pharmaceutical products where claims for healing and the likes are made. Each product will need to be studied and tested before they approve the registration application.

I hope you benefited from the information shared here. I truly urge you to start reading the labels and study the ingredients for personal care that you purchase for yourself and family. 

Thank you for reading….

xoxo

Eliza