Wesley has a diaper rash - his first ever in a year of life! It's a nasty-looking yeast rash actually, probably the result of some antibiotics he was on for an ear infection a few weeks ago. I was going to go to the doctor for a prescription-stength antifungal cream, but we've been there way too much lately for immunizations, and the ear infection... so I did some research online to see if there was a more natural way to take care of it myself... which, happily, there is! Yogurt with high levels of probiotics, specifically acidophilus, is very effective for treating yeast rashes in babies. I actually have a friend whose little girl had a diaper rash for months - she was prescriped multiple creams by the doctor - and yogurt was the only thing that actually worked! I went to Jo Anne's Place, our local health food store, and got the yogurt with the most acidophilus I could find. You just apply it and allow it to dry at each diaper change (the drying part is a little tricky with a squrimy toddler though...). It's actually pretty amazing - within 24 hours of using it, the rash is 80% better!
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Wesley au naturel |
I found some other good tips for treating yeash rashes too:
- let baby go diaper-less as much as possible. Yikes! I think we made it about an hour, during which I cleaned up 3 puddles!
- add some baking soda to bath water
- we use cloth diapers about half the time, so it's really important to wash them in as hot of water as possibe to kill any yeast living in the diaper. It's also a good idea to disinfect with some apple cider vinegar
- include extra probiotics in baby's diet (we do probiotic drops but yogurt would be good too)
- don't use baby powder which contains constarch as the yeast bacteria feeds on the powder and ca make it worse
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