As a new parent, you worry about every little ailment, scratch and bump that your newborn experiences. Seeing your baby’s skin break out in red and white pimples can be a little bit of a scare. After all, your little one shouldn’t have to deal with acne until he or she becomes a teenager, right? Not quite. What your child is experiencing is baby acne, a fairly common condition that affects young babies.

What Causes Baby Acne?
Acne is often caused by a change of hormones, bad nutrition and excessively oily skin. So how did your sweet little baby acquire any one of these causes? Obviously your child hasn’t picked up any bad eating habits yet, and newborns don’t usually suffer from oily skin. Hormones are the culprits.

Right before birth, the mother passes her hormones along to the baby through the placenta. This causes your baby’s skin to break out in acne when he or she is just a few weeks old. Baby acne mostly appears when the child is 4 to 6 weeks old.

How To Treat Baby Acne?
Baby acne is thankfully just a temporary skin condition. To take care of baby’s skin and help clear up the acne, wash the affected area several times a day with warm water and mild baby soap. If the acne appears in baby’s face, gently wipe it after each meal or spit-up. You should never use anything other than mild baby soap on your baby’s delicate skin unless your pediatrician instructs you otherwise. Baby’s skin is much to sensitive for any harsher cleaning solutions or acne remedies.

Once the hormones that were passed on from the mother work their way out of baby’s system, the baby acne will clear up on its own. Until then, keep the area clean to avoid additional bacteria to grow and to keep your baby comfortable.

The little zits do not hurt or bother your baby, after all he or she is too young to feel self-conscious about them and neither should you. Your baby will be just as cute with a few little bumps.

Melissa Rayn created an acne information site to give you the most accurate and up to date information about acne and acne treatment. Visit http://www.acneknowhow.com today to learn more. She also recommends http://www.healthandbeautytips.com for more skincare information as well as women’s health and beauty in general.

This article is looking at child obesity as the result of poor diet. Medical conditions resulting in child obesity, or the physical appearance of obesity, are issues to be discussed with your physician and beyond the scope of this article.

If you are concerned about your child possibly being overweight then you need to decide whether the excess weight is part of a growth pattern, that may change over time, or whether there is a weight problem. Your doctor will advise you on this. Child obesity can result in an increase in health problems. Don’t be embarrassed about seeking help, your doctor would rather treat child obesity or teen obesity now, than diabetes or heart disease later.

Statistics show that the level of child obesity in America is amongst the highest in the world, and a major cause is a diet of fast food, or food that is high in fat or sugar. Most children, with a change in diet and an increase in exercise, should see an improvement.

Look at the diet of your child. Is it mainly takeaways and processed food? These often contain high levels of fat, sugar and salt and should be cut back. Snacking is a bad habit, think of the calories in a candy bar! Fizzy drinks can also pile on the weight, when pure water is what the body really needs.

Every parent should try to implement the 5 A Day program. At first it may seem difficult to serve five portions of fruit and vegetables, never mind persuading your child to eat them, but if you study a list of suitable foods it is surprising how varied a diet you can provide. A glass of orange juice at breakfast, a banana mid- morning, beans or salad for lunch, fresh or frozen vegetables with dinner, dried fruit as a snack, the list is endless once you start looking. Having found the right food, the next problem is persuading your child to eat it . Try making small changes gradually altering the eating habits of the whole family. Unless a child is very overweight, maintaining the present weight without increasing it and letting the child grow to absorb the excess fat, is better than dramatic dieting. Ask your doctor about this as he can make a decision based on your child’s age and weight.

One idea worth considering is to appeal to your child’s consideration for others. Nowadays there is a lot of publicity given to world poverty and children are generally responsive to the needs of others. Get your child to add up how many dollars you spend monthly on expensive fast food, snacks and fizzy drinks, then consider spending that money on sponsoring a child. If your child feels he is helping to feed or educate another, it may well be the incentive needed. If you feel you cannot make such a commitment, why not just have a poverty jar, every time your child eats a piece of fruit instead of a candy bar, put a few cents into the jar and then let him/her chose which charity to give it to. But don’t make him feel guilty about others, anorexia isn’t healthy either!

The next thing to consider is increasing the amount of exercise your child takes and cutting the number of hours that television is watched. Overweight children find exercise difficult so start by increasing it slowly. Just walking a few hundred yards daily is a start. Your child may try to avoid exercise, but remember he may have been teased at school about being fat and failing to be athletic. As weight is lost, exercise will become easier and confidence increase, then he will become more willing to try new sports.

Finally remember that children need the support of the whole family if they is going to lose weight. If everyone follows a sensible diet your child is much more likely to succeed.

Advice on health matters should always be confirmed by a doctor and no liability is accepted for action taken.

Margaret Tye runs the FromTots2Teens website that offers information on supplies forchildren of all ages as well as advice on health and other child and teenage related problems.

You are welcome to use this article as long as it is not altered and credit is given to the author, with a link back to this site. FromTots2Teens

http://www.fromtots2teens.com.
Please pay the site a visit for articles on other childhood health issues.

Acne is a common problem that many teenagers face. It can be very embarrassing and soul destroying for many teenagers who are at a very delicate and self-concious age in their lives. With the many pressures that they face, teenage acne can be an added problem that interferes with a young person’s self esteem and confidence. For some of us, acne was not much of a concern throughout our youth and we do not understand the trials and tribulations that young sufferers go through. My sister did suffer and had to use acne treatment as a teenager.

I was one of the lucky, clear-skinned teenage girls in my school. I never had to use any acne medication or topical acne treatment. I did get the occasional pimple and strangely, I always had the pimples right before a special event. The blemish usually appeared right on the center of my nose or right in the middle of my forehead. The blemish would appear, right on cue, on the morning of a special event. For those suffering from teenage acne and acne breakouts then it was even worse as the anxiety before an important event was bound to herald a breakout right at the worst time.

My acne cursed sister had a breakout right before the Junior Miss Pageant and I think that this may have contributed to her not making the final ten when I did. It may have been the fact that she was five-two, a little plump and a little clumsy, but she likes to think that the acne was the cause of the Junior Miss elimination. Looking back now, it is fair to assume, that the breakout occurred because she was under stress. The blemish disappeared shortly after the pageant was over and finished for that year.

My sister didn’t appear to be the least bit nervous before her prom, but suddenly, there it was. She had an acne breakout on the eve of the prom. Covering it up with makeup only made it worse. She tried not to let the breakout spoil her night, but of course it did, although she had a good sense of humor about it. She did put her gown back on a week later to get pictures taken and I dressed up to have pictures taken with her. It’s only us who know that the date on the photographs is not the real prom date! Acne or no acne, she still had a great time. I realise how lucky I was not suffering from teenage acne.

Today, my sister finds herself in a new situation when it comes to unsightly acne blemishes. She, and I, are approaching middle age and use moisturizer. We are a long way past the teenage acne years. What she is finding is that her skin tends to be a bit oily and she is having mild acne breakouts after moisturizing her face. She is very irritated that she needs to combat wrinkles and acne at the same time. It is a pity that anti wrinkles cream and acne products aren’t combined. One of the things to look forward to as you get older is the absence of acne. I guess she still have a lot of growing up to do.

Bruce Walls is a writer and webmaster at http://www.a1-acne.com