Dry scalp is a problem that causes a lot of trouble for both adults and young children. Dry skin is almost always the presence of dandruff and increased vulnerability; it is much easier to injure such skin even with a regular comb. What to do if a child's scalp is dry, we will tell you in this article.
Causes of dryness
Children are not born with dry skin. In all newborns, without exception, the scalp has a protective lipid layer, the task of which is to protect the baby from drying out the skin. Dry skin can result from poor hygiene and metabolic disorders.
Most often, parents themselves destroy the lipid film, too often using soap, detergents while bathing the child. The scalp, deprived of its natural protection, becomes weak, thin and lifeless. Its permeability becomes higher, and the baby can become infected with a fungal or bacterial infection at any time.
Special baby care products, such as powder, can also make the skin very dry. Some parents use it to sprinkle diaper rash and prickly heat, not only in the skin folds, but also in the back of the head, where prickly heat is manifested quite often. Talc, which forms the basis of the powder, is capable of severely drying out the scalp of the baby.
The reason may lie in imbalance of substancesif the baby has congenital thyroid problems, as well as a consequence of problems with other glands due to improper nutrition. Food or drug, as well as contact allergies can provoke dermatitis, which also leads to dry skin on the hands, head, and feet.
The most common cause of dry skin is parents' violation of the air humidity in the room where the child lives. If the baby breathes dry air, if the heaters work in the apartment, then the likelihood of drying out the skin is very high.
Symptoms
Dry skin looks pale, with subtle cracks. Scales of the skin can peel off during brushing and are clearly visible. Scratches and wounds, small abrasions that he causes himself by careless combing may appear on the child's scalp.
Quite often, dry skin itches and itches. In places of scratching, microcracks form, into which pathogenic bacteria and fungi penetrate. These places look inflamed, pustular elements can form on them, which, after a breakthrough or injury, become covered with a yellowish dry crust.
Hair grows slowly in a child with a dry scalp and is usually brittle and thin. Due to increased dryness, baldness may begin.
How to help?
A few simple tips:
- The child should wash his head with warm water, boiled in advance, so that not even a hint of chlorine remains in it. You do not need to use soap or shampoo until the child is 1 year old. Once a week, you can wash your baby's hair with soapy water.
- After a year, only hypoallergenic baby shampoos that contain moisturizing oils should be used.
- A humidifier with a built-in hygrometer would be a good purchase. It will allow you to maintain the moisture level necessary for skin health (normally it should be in the range of 50-70%). If the family cannot afford such a purchase, the air can be humidified in other ways - by placing it in the children's aquarium, hanging wet sheets and towels on the batteries in the cold season with the heating on.
- Dry scalp requires special, gentle care. After taking a bath, it should be additionally moistened with oils permitted in childhood - vegetable, peach, apricot, petroleum jelly. Well moisturizes the epidermis and a regular baby cream.
However, these funds can only be applied to intact skin, which currently does not have pustules and wounds.
- It is better to soak dry crusts with oil 20 minutes before bathing and comb them out with a baby comb with neat teeth that do not hurt or scratch delicate baby skin.
- A certain temperature level should be maintained in the apartment. The higher it is, the drier the air. Therefore, it is important that the house is no more than 20-21 degrees Celsius. It is better to dress a frozen child warmly than to increase the temperature in the room.
- Baths and saunas only intensify the manifestations of dryness. Children with this problem should not be in such places, and when visiting a public pool where the water is chlorinated, be sure to cover your head with a rubber cap.
- The child's bedding should be washed only with a hypoallergenic powder approved for use in childhood; after washing the sheets and pillowcases, it must be additionally rinsed with clean water.
- A baby with a dry scalp should not wear a bonnet while at home. Hats for such children are a forced necessity, they should be worn only on the street, to the clinic, to visit.
- The child should eat right, take all the necessary vitamins, and drink enough fluids.
- From folk remedies, a child can be helped by a bath with a decoction of chamomile, as well as aloe juice, which is diluted in half with water and applied to the scalp.
- It is absolutely impossible to dry the hair of a child with dry skin with a hairdryer. They must dry naturally - in the open air.
- It is not necessary to shave a child with dry skin bald in a year. Having lost protection in the form of hair, the skin becomes even more vulnerable.
Treatment
If all the measures taken by the parents to eliminate dryness have not been successful, the child should be shown to a dermatologist. This specialist will prescribe the necessary tests and consultations with a gastroenterologist, nutritionist, pediatrician. After establishing the true cause, the main treatment begins, and the diet, lifestyle and hygiene habits are also adjusted. Ozone therapy and mesotherapy procedures are useful.
During treatment, you may have to completely abandon the use of shampoo, replacing it with decoctions of medicinal herbs. Such an appointment, if necessary, will be made by a doctor.
All funds must be harmoniously complemented circular light massage of the scalp. EIt can be done for children from 2 months. The procedure helps to improve the blood supply to the skin, to adjust the work of the sebaceous glands, which are responsible for the production of lipids.
For information on how to get rid of crusts on a child's head, see the next video.
