The skin of a newborn baby is very delicate and thin. That is why the phrase "baby bristles" sounds rather strange. Is there such a pathology, how it manifests itself and how you can help the baby, we will tell you in this article.
What it is?
"Bristle", "bristle", "poker", "tickler" - this is how the people usually call a very mysterious disease, the existence of which humanity is still not sure. Even among the representatives of this very people there are supporters of the opinion that there is no such ailment, it is fictional. But there are also supporters of the opinion of the existence of a poker of newborns, hotly defending their point of view.
In the people, a bristle refers to the condition of a newborn, in which the baby is restless, does not sleep well, cries a lot and for no apparent reason, arches his back while lying down. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers usually routinely state that the crumbs have a "poker", and begin to give new parents effective, in their opinion, advice on how to save the baby from suffering. Moreover, this very bristle does not always appear.
In this case, healers and traditional healers claim that short and spiky hard hairs in a baby grow between the layers of the skin: the dermis and epidermis. And due to the impossibility of the hair reaching the surface of the skin, the child is worried.
Sometimes the bristle is really noticeable: it appears as dark points on the skin, it is most often located in the area of the shoulders, back, sides, on the legs and arms, less often on the ears. People's "advisers" claim that you can determine the "poker" by the roughness of the baby's skin, if you lightly run a wet hand over it.
At various times, children with visible bristles were considered special. So, in medieval Europe, it was believed that the mother of such a child was engaged in witchcraft, and usually a poor woman ended her life at the stake. In Russia, up to the end of the 18th century, it was believed that the mother of a baby with a "poker" sinned and conceived a child in lust, a woman could be whipped with rods for edification, and they tried to take the child to a bathhouse, steam it and baptize it as soon as possible, so that evil forces would not take his pure soul.
Today, all these superstitions seem ridiculous and absurd, however, there are still many questions with the existence of such a phenomenon as a bristle.
What do the doctor's say?
Traditional medicine categorically rejects the existence of "poker", such a term you will not find in any authoritative medical source. But everyone heard it, and, most likely, they guess what it is about. From the point of view of medicine, we are talking about lanugo - the very first hairs that appear in the fetus during its intrauterine development.
As soon as hair follicles form, they start to work: thin and discolored hair grows. At 12 weeks gestation, lanugo starts growing and continues until about 28 weeks. By this time, the baby's body is almost completely covered with hair.
Lanugo is a genetic memory from distant ancestors, a kind of atavism. But, if you look closely at the development of a baby, starting from the state of a fertilized egg, you can understand that in a few months he goes through the evolutionary path that humanity has gone through hundreds of thousands of years. Tail, gills, hair - all this is inherent in the human baby during its intrauterine development.
Lanugo needs the baby as protection. While his skin is very thin, and the subcutaneous fat has not yet formed, lanugo reliably holds the layer of primordial lubricant that covers his body. As the subcutaneous fat grows, the need for lanugo disappears, and the process of getting rid of it begins. Hair falls out even in the womb, most often the process ends 2-3 weeks before delivery. But it so happens that a baby is born with the remnants of lanugo, this is especially common in premature babies.
By itself, the hairline does not bother the child, does not in any way affect his condition and development, and after about two weeks there is no trace of the blond lanugo hair. But it is after this that the process of replacing the vellus hair with real hair, which grows over the entire skin area of absolutely every person, can be somewhat disrupted. Delayed and prolonged natural loss of lanugo sometimes disrupts the functioning of hair follicles. This is the only more or less reasonable explanation for the appearance of "bristles" in infants.
This condition is not considered a disease, and there is no recommended treatment for it.
The opinion of Dr. Komarovsky
A well-known pediatrician, whose opinion is listened to by hundreds of thousands of mothers in the world, believes that popular rumor somewhat exaggerates the harm from an infant bristle. Not in every case of the birth of a child with lanugo, a bristle will then appear, not in every case even a bristle that appears will somehow interfere with the child. Even if you do nothing at all, both lanugo and the bristle will disappear on their own.
Atavism is a property that was normal for distant ancestors, but is not considered the norm for this generation. The appearance of hair is a "hello" from ancient times, when the human body was covered with thick wool, which protects it from the cold, insects, and animal bites.
There is nothing to worry about: congenital cases of total body hair are usually very rare genetic syndromes that occur in isolated cases. Superfluous, according to parents, hair on the baby's body usually has nothing to do with such diseases.
Whether it is necessary to remove the bristle is an ambiguous question. From the point of view of medicine, it is not necessary, and sometimes even harmful, because the unreasonable actions of the parents can harm the baby more than the bristle symptoms described by mom and dad.
If you really want to remove dark spots from the skin of the crumbs, parents can do this, but on condition that they act on the basis of the principle of rationality. First of all, parents need to make sure that the child's restless behavior has no other reasons: hunger, pain, cold, heat.
If the child is well fed, well-groomed, the room is not hot or cold, if he is dressed in undershirts made of natural fabrics, nothing annoys him and does not cause discomfort, but crying continues, and even the called pediatrician cannot understand its reasons, you can try to remove the bristles even if her symptoms do not appear. With reasonable actions, it will not harm the child, and the parents will immediately become much calmer and more comfortable.
How to get rid of?
Since there are no medications for such a phenomenon as "poker", it is customary to treat hair "thorns" in a child exclusively using folk remedies. But for a start, traditional healers suggest diagnosing: the baby is bathed and a few drops of breast milk are dripped onto the steamed skin in the bathroom after soaking with a soft towel. It is believed that after this, a baby suffering from a "poker" will certainly show dark thorn dots (they will be noticeable).
Traditional healers have their own opinion about the need to treat the bristle. They believe that this must be done, while traditional medicine denies the need for this.
The psyche of the newly-made parents is arranged in such a way that it quickly "breaks down" if the child screams, bends and it is not clear what he demands. Therefore, doing nothing is not our style. Parents who decide to struggle with the baby's "bristle", even if they do not know how it looks, are advised to choose the safest ways and methods for this.
Bread is one such method. Mom needs to bake homemade bread, take a still warm crumb, roll it into a ball the size of a chicken egg and gently roll it in a circular motion on clean, steamed skin after an evening bathing in the area of the back, arms, legs, and shoulders of the crumbs. For the baby, this will be a gentle gentle massage. For mom - a reason to calm down.
The second popular way to get rid of the tickler is dough. In the first case, you need to prepare a steep and thick dough from flour, vegetable oil and warm water, roll a ball and massage the above places with it after swimming. In the second case, the dough will need liquid, but its composition will remain the same: flour, warm water, a spoonful of vegetable oil. The baby is coated with a liquid, almost “pancake” dough, wrapped in a diaper and left for 15 minutes. It is believed that after this time, not only the dough will remain in the diaper, but also the hard hairs that have left the skin.
Another proven method that will not harm the child either from the point of view of traditional medicine, or from the point of view of non-traditional medicine, is a boiled chicken egg. Warm egg in a circular motion "roll out" problem areas on the body of the baby. The main thing is not to overdo it and not to apply an egg that is too hot to the skin to exclude burns.
Many folk "advisors" strongly recommend to steam the child in the bath, generously lubricate his skin with honey. Parents should understand that it is impossible to carry a baby to the bathhouse and sauna: its thermoregulation is imperfect, it can easily overheat. And honey is the strongest allergen, which is not recommended even externally for children under 3 years old.
If you really want to treat, treat with a test and an egg, they will not cause allergies and hyperthermia.
To get rid of the "bristle" you need to bathe the child every day, but you should not use soap every day: it dries the baby's skin a lot, makes them even thinner and more vulnerable. You need to bathe your child in warm water using a soft sponge.
What is prohibited?
The mention of rationality by Komarovsky and his pediatric colleagues is a non-empty warning. Unfortunately, parents are often too carried away by popular advice in the treatment of a child and can harm him.
With the "poker", if dark spots have already become noticeable, you must not try to remove the hairs mechanically. You cannot cut and shave them, use creams and peels that mom uses for depilation. Mechanical actions can cause injury to hair follicles, the appearance of wounds, and infection with pathogenic bacteria.
Wax and resins are also not the best solution. They can cause severe allergic reactions up to chemical burns.
Any attempts by parents to cut, pluck, remove hairs from the baby's skin is a uniform mockery of the child, which gives the child pain, causes fear, and also jeopardizes the health of his skin in the future.
The scariest advice a young mother can get is to smear the baby with oil and wrap it in plastic for half an hour. Thermoregulation of babies is weak, they easily give off heat and easily overheat. Such methods of "treatment" can become fatal, because hyperthermia can develop even before the end of the "therapeutic session".
Reviews
According to the reviews of newly-made parents, they rarely encounter a bristle, they hear more about it, and these rumors are rather frightening. That is why many begin to look for the symptoms of this notorious "poker" in their children. This does not add peace of mind to either the child or the nursing mother, who needs to preserve milk at any cost.
Those who have noticed bristles on the skin of their babies say that bread crumb and thick elastic dough are very helpful. True, the procedure has to be repeated 3-4 times during the week: after the first "rolling out" it is usually not possible to get rid of the dark spots on the baby's skin completely.
Most young and modern parents do not believe too much in the scary stories and omens associated with infant bristles. Representatives of the older generation do their best to convince them.
Whether to cure a disease that does not exist is up to the parents themselves. If they feel calmer this way, it is possible to treat, the main thing is that all the participants feel good in the end: the baby, his mother, father and, of course, grandmother.
For information on what a poker (bristle) is in newborns, see the next video.
