Baby Diaper Rash
Prevention and Treatment
Baby Diaper Rash – how to treat it - and more important, how to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Nothing is harder to see than your little baby crying in pain with a flaming red bottom. Fortunately, if you eat a healthy diet and use cloth diapers, diaper rash is rare. Here is what we have learned about preventing and treating diaper rash.
Our Top Tips for Preventing Baby Diaper Rash
- Quickly change poopy diapers – Poop against bare skin is likely to cause diaper rash. Watch your baby closely for signs of pooping. Change your baby immediately after a poop and at least every three hours. You want to keep things as dry as possible.
- Use cloth diapers – they breathe much better than paper, reducing bacteria and heat build-up, both of which contribute to diaper rash.
- Cut back on citrus and /or tomato sauce – both are acidic and known to cause diaper rash if left on the skin for even brief periods of time.
- Use a natural diaper cream with Zinc if your baby has been eating foods you know will cause diaper rash as well as at night. Our favorites are
Avalon Organics Zinc Diaper Balm and
Weleda Calendula Diaper Care.
- Eliminate foods your baby is allergic to. If your baby is getting regular diaper rashes despite doing the above, check into possible food allergies and/or try eliminating foods you suspect your child may be allergic to (shows signs of gastric distress after eating, craves abnormally, etc.)
- Consider other dietary contributors. For example, too much sugar and/or simple carbohydrates can cause yeast problems. See our page about Healthy Eating for Children.
- Don’t change your baby on public changing tables unless you can sanitize it first and use a liner or something to prevent your baby’s skin from coming in contact with the table. Public changing tables are rarely cleaned and you don’t know what might be on them.
Our Top Tips for Treating Baby Diaper Rash
- First clean the area regularly with our diaper wash solution or
California Baby Non-Burning and Calming Diaper Area Wash. Do a thorough job, even if your baby is crying. The acid in urine and poop left behind will make the situation worse. Avoid using disposable diaper wipes as they contain chemicals which may be irritating your baby.
- Let your baby air dry completely after washing and before putting a new diaper on.
- For a really red and/or raw baby diaper rash, Try leaving the diaper off entirely for a period of time – Sunlight is a great natural disinfectant and air circulation aids in healing. You want the rash to dry out and scab so healing can take place. You don’t want it to stay open and oozing. Additionally, diaper rash can be caused by yeast which doesn’t like light.
- Switch to cloth diapers – disposables contain all kinds of chemicals which may be irritating your baby including sodium polyacrylate, bleach and dioxins. Read our article about easy
Cloth Baby Diapering
- Apply a natural or organic diaper cream with Zinc. Zinc helps the healing process and is especially soothing for a baby diaper rash. Our favorites are
Avalon Organics Zinc Diaper Balm and
Weleda Calendula Diaper Care. If you are using cloth diapers, use a
flushable diaper liner since the diaper cream is hard to wash off and may build up on your diapers.
- If you suspect the diaper rash may be caused by yeast, or if the skin in the diaper area is dry and flaky, apply a little raw, organic, cold-pressed coconut oil to the rash and leave your baby's diaper off for a little while. Coconut oil has both antimicrobial and antifungal properties and is wonderful for dry skin.
- Leverage your child’s discomfort to encourage potty training. Even young babies can be potty trained. A great informational website about this is
Diaper Free Baby.
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