The horrific damage BABY WIPES can do to children's skin: Chemical in the wipes can cause an itchy red rash
- Methylisothiazolinon (MI), a preservative, can cause allergic reactions
- Researchers suggest parents only use baby wipes when they are travelling
- They say that at home it is safer to use paper towels with water
- MI has been blamed for a massive rise in dangerous allergic reactions caused by a huge range of beauty products
Baby wipes make some children come out in painful, red rashes, new research suggests.
A chemical preservative called methylisothiazolinone (MI) in the wipes causes an allergic reaction in some children, researchers found.
The chemical has been blamed for a massive rise in dangerous allergic reactions caused by a huge range of beauty products.
Until now, no cases of allergic reactions to wet wipes had been reported in the U.S., but the study authors think this could be due to the reactions being misdiagnosed as other conditions, such as eczema.
‘I think it may be more common than people realise,’ Dr Mary Wu Chang, an associate professor of dermatology and paediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, told NBC News.
Scientists at the school of medicine studied six children with severe rashes.
The first child was a girl who had a rash on her face and her buttocks.
The eight-year-old had already been treated with antibiotics and steroids but after each treatment, the rash reappeared.
The scientists suspected that she might be suffering from an allergic reaction so asked her mother what she used to clean her.
The girl’s mother explained that she used wet wipes to clean her daughter’s mouth and buttocks.
Dr Chang had recently read a report about a Belgian man who was allergic to the MI in baby wipes.
She tested the child for an allergy and the results were positive.
Unsurprisingly, when the girl’s mother then stopped using baby wipes, her rashes disappeared.
During the following two years, five more children were brought to the medical centre with similar rashes.
In each case, the rash disappeared as soon as the children were no longer cleaned with baby wipes.
Despite the discovery, Dr Chang does not believe parents should stop using baby wipes.
She told NBC News: ‘They’re so convenient. I have three kids, so I know how hard it is to do the changes, especially when you’re travelling.
‘But maybe when you’re at home, it would be better to use a gentle cleanser and water. That way you minimise exposure.’
Dr Robin Gehris, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, says the number of children suffering from these reactions is increasing.
As a result, she also suggests parents avoid using them except when they are travelling.
She says that at home it is better to use wet paper towels.
Baby wipes are not the only product to contain MI.
Cosmetic giant Johnson & Johnson says it is so concerned, it is taking the chemical out of its best-selling Piz Buin sun cream and other products.
Molton Brown is doing the same and big brands such as Nivea, L’Oreal, Clarins and Sanctuary are under pressure to take action as doctors say adverse reactions to the chemical have reached ‘epidemic proportions’.
Skin experts say manufacturers should urgently remove the chemical from products that are left on the skin. It can cause rashes, lumps, blisters, itchy eyes and facial swelling.
In one case, a woman’s head and face swelled up so much that doctors feared she would have trouble breathing without urgent treatment.
In another, a British holidaymaker’s skin became so inflamed that she spent two days in a Spanish hospital and needed steroids and antihistamines to calm the allergic reaction.
MI is a preservative designed to extend shelf life, and has no useful properties for users of the products.
Experts say the scale of the allergic reactions to the chemical, which has been used increasingly since 2005, is alarming.
Dermatologists expect an allergic reaction to a cosmetic product of one or two per cent, but clinics say the rate for MI has been more than 10 per cent.
Leading dermatologist Dr Ian White, from St Thomas’ Hospital in London, said: ‘The frequency of reactions to MI is unprecedented in my experience.
'We’ve never seen anything quite like it. Contact allergy to this permitted preservative is now of epidemic proportions. Immediate action needs to be taken by industry.’
Reference source:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2538668/The-horrific-damage-BABY-WIPES-childrens-skin-Chemical-wipes-cause-itchy-red-rash.html
In fact, many products contain chemicals that have not been fully tested for safety. Scientists do not know the effects of long term exposure to many of these chemicals on the human body.
We usually think that the safety of the things that we apply on our skin may not be as important as that of the food we eat. This is not true. In fact, we should take more note on what we apply on our skin. Why?
The food we eat goes through the stomach in which gastric acids help to kill the germ. However, the substances we breath in or absorbed thru the skin GO DIRECTLY into the BLOODSTREAM. The thinner the skin, the less effective it is at keeping out substances that cause irritation. Elderly people and young children have thinner and more sensitive skin. Substances of molecular weight of 400 and below penetrate more easily into skin and could have serious effects if harmful.
Many toxic chemicals accumulate in human fat tissue. Residual toxins present in the mother are passed to the child in her milk during breastfeeding. The fact that small children lack detoxification enzymes in the liver makes this even worse.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released the results of a two-year study that found up to 232 different industrial chemicals in the cord blood of 10 babies who were exposed to the substance while still in the womb.
This study tested for chemicals found in nearly every American household. The findings represented the first reported detections in American newborns for 21 contaminants. Among them are Bisphenol A (BPA), Tetrabromobisphenol A(TBBPA), Perflurobutanoic acid (PFBA, or C4) which are linked to cancer, birth defects, infertility and so on.
Just to share, I choose to use E.Excel Elemente baby series for my baby as I know the products have gone thru the toxicity tests under MSDS test requirements. So far it has been good for my 2 month old baby. :)
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