Treatment of acne in children

Pimples and acne on the face and body of the child are always worried about the parents. First of all, anxiety is caused by the fact that it is not always clear why the baby has acne. And, therefore, it is not clear exactly how to treat it. In this article, we will look at the basic methods that will get rid of acne in a child of any age.

Why do acne appear?

Acne in the language of doctors is called "acne". A pimple is nothing more than an inflamed hair follicle and sebaceous gland. If the production of subcutaneous fat for some reason increases, then the time is quickly clogged with this secret, and if an infection joins, then inflammation occurs.

It looks like this in a nutshell the mechanism of the appearance of acne in children of any age. The acne itself is superficial and deep, localized (for example, only on the face) and confluent (when large areas of different parts of the body are covered with continuous acne areas). A common time clogged with subcutaneous fat is a comedone. It is open - "black dots" and closed - white wen. If a bacterial infection has joined, then papules appear - towering hollow acne or pustules - purulent pimples.

The causes of acne vary by age. Let's talk about this further.

In newborns and infants

Neonatal cephalic pustulosis is a neonatal acne. Occurs in about every third baby. Sometimes it develops in the first days after birth, and sometimes during the first six months of independent life. Most often, pustules and wen are located in a newborn on the face and head. Less commonly - on the ears and neck.

The reasons for the appearance of science are not known for certain. As the most convincing versions, scientists consider two prerequisites: hormonal background and adaptive abilities of the body. It is believed that the baby is greatly influenced by the level of female sex hormones that the mother "passed" to the baby during pregnancy and during childbirth. In addition, the skin adapts to a new environment - anhydrous. The sebaceous glands have not yet "rehearsed" normal work in these conditions, therefore more subcutaneous fat in infants is formed than it needs to protect the epidermis.

For preschoolers

The list of causes that lead to acne in kindergarteners is much wider. First of all, it is improper hygiene, skin pollution, microtrauma (scratches and small abrasions), into which pathogenic bacteria enter. Extensive rash at this age practically does not occur. We are mainly talking about local rashes and single acne in a child. The place of deployment is mainly the upper part of the body.

Since children often touch their face with dirty hands, acne appears on the cheeks, on the forehead, and less often on the neck.

The cause of acne at this age can be unhealthy diet - excessive presence of carbohydrate and fatty foods in the child's diet. Sweating affects the formation of acne, if the baby is dressed warmer than the weather requires, if it is hot in the house where the little one lives, then the likelihood of developing acne increases. Sometimes parents themselves are guilty of acne, because they believe that daily washing of the child with baby soap or other cosmetics is beneficial. In fact, the skin dries out, loses the protective shell of subcutaneous fat, and the body begins to actively produce new fat in much larger quantities. The pores cannot remove that much secretion and are clogged.

In adolescents

As in infants, acne in adolescents is considered physiological. Acne from the age of 12 appears due to the increased production of sex hormones - estrogen in girls and testosterone in boys. Under the influence of hormonal rebellion, all organs and systems of the body are mobilized. Skin is no exception. The sebaceous glands begin to produce a huge amount of subcutaneous fat.

The locations of acne in adolescents are varied - from the traditional location on the face to pimples on the back, on the shoulders, on the arms above and below the elbow and legs, and even on the butt and in the intimate area. Teenage acne can be superficial, deep or even draining.

The main reason is hormonal levels, although there are many factors that aggravate the manifestations of acne. This is sweating and a lot of stress that a child experiences during exams or preparing for competitions, during the period of falling in love and due to difficulties in relationships with peers.

The intensity of the rash is influenced by both medications and steroids, which many begin to take in adolescence for a more pronounced effect of fitness.

Improper nutrition is considered one of the most serious causes of adolescent acne, because at this age children can eat irregularly, on the run, prefer fast food to normal lunch.

How to distinguish from disease

It is important to be able to distinguish acne from numerous dermatological diseases, which are also manifested by pustules and papules. In order not to study textbooks on dermatology and reference books of an infectious disease specialist, it is enough for parents to remember several distinctive signs of skin ailments from a banal acne:

Acne never not deployed on the tongue, on the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth. If rashes are found in these places, you should call a doctor and exclude herpes infection, diphtheria, stomatitis.
Acne does not sit on elbows, palms and feet. If rashes are found on the feet, palms, heels, and the nature of the rash resembles a dense wart, it is worth contacting a dermatologist or infectious disease specialist.
Small rash on the elbows, knees and under the knees, on the fingers and in the interdigital space, on the hands, on the thighs, on the abdomen, which is also itchy and itchy in the evenings - a reason for an early visit to an infectious disease specialist. Perhaps we are talking about scabies.
In young children, acne is located only on the face. If there are rashes on the body, be sure to call a pediatrician. It can be an infectious disease (chickenpox, measles), and dermatoses, and allergic manifestations. Acne in babies does not itch or itch; if anxiety appears, the baby should also be examined - perhaps it is not acne. A rash under the arm, in the skin folds under the knees is diaper rash.
Acne that manifests itself in certain situations - after taking sweets, after the "Paracetamol" pill, it is not acne, but food or drug allergy. It is not necessary to treat such pimples, it is necessary to treat an allergic reaction. Contact an allergist.
Acne, even deep and draining, does not affect the general well-being of the child. His temperature, stool, and appetite remain normal.

If any symptom appears, indicating a malfunction in the body, coinciding with the appearance of a rash, you should definitely call a doctor.

Treatment

Grudnichkov

Acne in newborns and children under one year old does not need special treatment, since it is physiological. As soon as the hormonal background returns to normal, the excess of maternal sex hormones will disappear, the baby's skin will take on a normal appearance. However, it makes sense to help babies' skin adapt to its environment faster and easier.

For this, it is important to prevent the baby from sweating. The room where the baby sleeps should not be hot. It is best to adhere to an air temperature of +20 degrees and a relative humidity of 50-70%. You need to dress the little one for the weather. And if he does sweat, for example, during a walk in warm overalls in winter, you must definitely bathe him after a walk in warm water without detergents.

Do not lubricate baby pimples with baby cream and other oily-based cosmetics. This leads to additional blockage of skin pores and increased pimple formation. It is impossible to squeeze out pimples in order to avoid pathogenic bacteria entering the wound and the development of purulent bacterial inflammation. You need to bathe a child with baby soap no more than once a day, in the evening before bedtime. When choosing a bathing product, it is important that it is hypoallergenic, non-alkaline, and free of perfumery fragrances and dyes.

After bathing, the child is not rubbed with a towel, but only gently blotted with it to prevent microtrauma of the skin.

For the treatment of neonatal acne do not use powder, do not lubricate pimples with alcohol-containing products. A mother who is breastfeeding should stop being nervous. The hormone cortisone, which is produced during stress, enters the baby's body with the mother's milk and also contributes to the appearance of pimples.

Don't try the latest anti-acne cosmetics on your baby's skin. This is fraught with serious consequences for the child. It is much more useful for babies - air and sunbathing naked, bathing in a bathtub to which a decoction of chamomile or a series of chamomile has been added, as well as hardening - dousing with cool (not cold!) Water.

The baby should be taken to the doctor if the parents cannot understand the cause of the appearance of pimples, if the rash does not go away for 4-5 months, if the skin has become "goose bumps", if pimples become purulent.

Preschoolers

If a preschooler has acne, it should definitely be shown to a doctor. From this, in fact, treatment should begin. Acne at this age is not a physiological norm and always indicates that pathological changes occur in the body. The examination should be started with a visit to a pediatrician, and then to a dermatologist, gastroenterologist and neurologist.

Quite often at this age, acne appears in children with a genetic predisposition to acne. This fact makes the rash difficult to heal. However, one should not despair. First of all, the child's nutrition is adjusted. An abundance of pastries, sweets, as well as fatty foods, smoked sausages and fish, fatty meat, butter are excluded from the diet of a preschooler. Cookies, chocolate and chips are prohibited. It is imperative to give your child fermented milk products - cottage cheese, kefir, bioyogurt every day.

Lean meat and poultry are boiled or baked, cutlets are made with steam. Every day, the child should eat a salad of fresh vegetables with sunflower oil.

For degreasing the skin a 3% salicylic alcohol solution can be used. They need to wipe their face no more than once a day in order to avoid overdrying the skin. The child should not wash with hot, but with warm water no more than twice a day. It is important to teach the kid not to touch his face with his hands, not to touch pimples, not to rip them off or squeeze them out.

If the pimple is damaged, you should quickly treat it with hydrogen peroxide and sprinkle it with Baneocin powder. The drug has a strong antibacterial effect and protects the child from the penetration of bacteria that cause a purulent process.

With multiple purulent pimples with the permission of the doctor, apply topically 1-2 times a day ointment "Baneocin", as well as other ointments with antibiotics - "Erythromycin" or "Tetracycline".

If the cause of acne at such an unusual age lies in disorders of the stomach and intestines, the underlying disease is treated, after which the child is prescribed to take live bacteria - "Bifidumbacterin".

Cosmetic procedures to get rid of the skin from acne are not performed for children, any aggressive effect on the skin at this age is contraindicated... Banned are antiseptics (iodine, brilliant green and other products), baby cream, adult face care products, masks based on honey, oil, red berries.

It is important to ensure that the child does not overheat or sweat. If sweating is increased, dressing the child should be easier, and water procedures - washing with warm water from a shower without soap and a washcloth - should be made more frequent (up to several times a day). Bed linen, clothes that come into contact with the affected skin must be sewn only from natural fabrics. Synthetics and semisynthetics mechanically irritate the skin even more.

A child with acne at preschool age should be taken to an unscheduled appointment with a doctor if the pimples turn red, become inflamed, many new purulent "heads" appear, the temperature rises or the overall well-being of the baby worsened.

Teenagers

Treating teenage acne in boys and girls requires significant efforts on the part of doctors and parents. You should immediately tune in and adjust the child correctly - the treatment of the problem will take more than one month. In this case, the actions should be daily, mandatory, systemic.

The treatment will be extremely complex, and medications in it are far from the most important component.

It is advisable to visit a doctor - cosmetologist-dermatologist. He will be able to identify the likely triggers of acne in a teenager. The reason is known - it is a surge in sex hormones, but the accompanying factors may be different. Sometimes there is a need to take a scraping of the contents of pustules on the skin in order to establish which microbe caused the suppuration and to which existing antibacterial drugs it is sensitive.

For treatment, medications, procedures, and the possibilities of surgery are used. In most cases, it is possible to cope with the problem with the help of conservative treatment. Mild, shallow and non-draining forms of acne are treated topically.

For skin treatment and disinfection it uses salicylic alcohol, or rather, its 2-3% solution. They should process the skin at least twice a day. If the skin begins to become dry from exposure, then the number of treatments is reduced to once a day.

"Zinc Ointment" helps teenagers well. It should be applied to areas with acne, rubbing lightly into the surface of the skin, no more than 1-2 times a day. For acne with purulent heads, according to adolescents, the Zinerit ointment helps quickly and effectively. It contains both zinc and an antibiotic.

Pustular skin lesions always require antibiotic therapy. For the treatment of acne, adolescents are recommended ointments - "Tetracycline", "Levomekol", "Erythromycin". They are applied in a thin layer on pre-cleansed skin 1 time per day.

With a deep purulent rash with the formation of subcutaneous cysts the doctor additionally prescribes antibiotics in tablets for the teenager. For example, "Erythromycin" or a drug of the same group with it - "Azithromycin". The course of treatment with tablets usually does not exceed 10-14 days, and an ointment with antimicrobial components is used longer - up to several months.

For the treatment of acne in adolescents, external agents are used that regulate the production of the sebaceous glands. The most successful treatment is with such ointments and gels:

"Tretinoin";
"Ugresol";
Oxygel;
Baziron AS;
"Adapalen";
Skinoren;
"Acne-Free".

To normalize the microflora in the intestine the teenager is prescribed "Laktofiltrum". With draining acne, treatment with hormonal ointments "Advantan" or "Triderm" is indicated.

In severe cases, when the above drugs do not help, do not have the desired effect, the teenager is recommended alternative methods of treatment.

These include hardware and ultrasonic face cleansing, laser cleaning, manual instrumental cleaning of pores from accumulated subcutaneous fat and treatment of pustules. In some cases, if the teen has deep cysts, hormones (corticosteroids) are injected directly into the acne with a syringe.

The procedure is quite painful, but very effective if other methods have not worked.

You will have to resort to the services of surgeons in the event that if deep purulent cysts leave deep "ruts" on the skin. The treatment will be aimed not only at cleansing the inflamed cavities from pus, but also at correcting cosmetic defects. Most often, surgeons excise a pimple together with a depression and apply a piece of the teenager's own skin to this place, a kind of "patch" - a graft.

These methods are mainly used in the treatment of facial acne. Not the forearm, the back is content with medication. After the procedures and surgical treatment, the child is prescribed the usual regimen for using ointments. Thus, the minimum course of treatment lasts from 3 months to six months.

Along with treatment, the adolescent's routine should be changed. Reduce stressors. For this, a young man or woman is prescribed light herbal sedatives. They should be taken once a day, before bedtime. A good effect is given by "Persen" and motherwort tincture. It is not worth taking them in the morning, as the funds cause sedation, drowsiness and inability to concentrate on studies.

A teenager should sleep at least 8-9 hours, it is very important to follow this rule, since many hormones are synthesized in the body only during sleep. Lack of sleep leads to additional hormonal imbalances, and acne gets worse, despite all the medications the child takes. Proper and balanced nutrition also plays an important role. Fresh vegetables and fruits, juices, dairy and fermented milk products, whole grain bread, lean meat and fish should be present in the adolescent's diet every day. It is forbidden to eat fast food, fried and fatty foods, factory sweets, yeast dough and pastries made from it.

Adolescents who take steroids to achieve athletic performance or build muscle mass should strongly discard these drugs and protein sports nutrition during and after treatment.

Folk remedies

Over the millennia of the existence of such a problem as acne, alternative medicine has accumulated a lot of recipes that have a beneficial effect on the skin of a child.

Traditional medicine experts advise against using herbal and honey-based products for children under 3 years of age, or using such methods to treat acne in children with allergies.

In general, it is not worth considering folk methods of dealing with acne as the main treatment. But to take note of some recipes and use them together with drug therapy as an aid is possible, and sometimes necessary.

It is useful for kids to make decoctions for washing from a dry pharmacy collection of ordinary chamomile. Baths with decoctions of a series will also benefit. The same herbs can be used to wash the face of preschool children. Lotions with calendula decoction will help to get rid of red small pimples quickly enough. This herb relieves inflammation and soothes irritated skin.

"Blackheads", which teenagers are so susceptible to, come out of their pores well if you make a boy or a girl a mask with rustic granular cottage cheese mixed with raw egg white. Purulent pimples of a superficial type lend themselves well to a mask made from mashed fresh viburnum or strawberry berries, as well as cranberry masks.

It is better not for babies to carry out such procedures because of the possible risks of developing a strong skin allergic reaction.

In adolescence, you can use the most common lemon. The juice of this citrus is added to the water for washing. It is better not to do sour washing for small children because of the risk of liquid getting into the eyes and nose. Teenage girls often use lemon juice undiluted to lubricate acne separately. This method is also acceptable, however, provided that the acne does not have purulent "heads" and their integrity is not violated.

Birch leaves and buds help with plentiful acne on the body. They can be brewed and given to the teenager to drink. It is useful to visit the bathhouse with a birch broom. Preschoolers will benefit from washing and bathing with a decoction of mint leaves. The leaves of this wonderful plant can also be added to your child's tea.

For teenagers who are not prone to allergies, honey masks can be done once a week. The warm bee product is mixed with a small amount of milk and applied to the skin in a thin layer. After 15-20 minutes, the mask is washed off with warm water. The skin is not wiped off, but allowed to dry on its own.

To improve metabolism, which directly affects the condition of the skin, a child over 4-5 years old can be given half a glass of cool water on an empty stomach in the morning with the addition of freshly squeezed juice of fresh cabbage, beets, carrots.

General recommendations

When treating acne in children of all ages, it is important to observe some rules to get rid of acne faster and more effectively:

You can't steam the baby's face. Moreover, you should not steam it in order to then squeeze out the hated pimple. Despite the fact that this method of cleansing the face has been known for a long time, in the absence of sterility in the house, these manipulations are a sure way to infection of the skin with bacteria and deeper further inflammation, as well as the spread of foci of acne to neighboring skin.
You can not wash the child often and diligently. Moreover, you cannot do it with hot water. High temperatures in the bathroom, sauna or steam bath only increase the production of subcutaneous fat and this leads to clogged pores in other places.
It is best not to use soap and face cleansers. Young children do not need facial soap at all, and teenagers are better off replacing alkaline soap with a product from the line of medical cosmetics - a gel for washing.
Wiping your face with alcohol, burning acne with it is ineffective and harmful to the skin. Bacteria are not afraid of alcohol, and therefore the number of acne from it does not decrease. But overdrying the skin leads to additional production of sebum and the formation of new elements of the rash.

Any acne treatment should be age appropriate. It is worth choosing drugs with antibiotics only after consulting a doctor who will confirm that the inflammation on the skin is precisely of a bacterial nature.