Why Is My Baby Itchy?

The emotional heartache of watching your child attack their itchy skin in a scratch frenzy takes its toll in so many ways. It can cause them to wake up several times during the night, impacting their mood and your ability to cope with it all again during the day.

It can affect your relationship with your partner because you can both feel so affected by the health of your child and frustrated if you can't bring them relief. And if you have other children it can affect their behaviour because of the extra attention eczema demands.

But through all of this, one question you might keep asking yourself is – why is my child so itchy? What’s different about their eczema-prone skin that causes them to scratch constantly?

If your little one struggles with itchy skin, it's best to consult with a medical professional to determine whether they have eczema or if there's another reason why they feel itchy. 

What makes eczema skin itchy?

The skin of people who struggle with eczema is different from those who don’t have eczema. A helpful way to think about skin is that it is the barrier between your body and the environment – hence the term ‘skin barrier’. For people with eczema, their skin barrier doesn’t function as it should. This impaired skin barrier means it can lose moisture more easily (resulting in dry skin). It might also provide less protection than it should against irritants such as allergens, bacteria and toxins in the environment. These irritants can then enter the skin, and because they’re not meant to be there, the immune system responds, resulting in inflammation that causes the skin to become itchy. 

Itching can also be triggered by sweat, sudden temperature changes and even psychological factors (which can be unconscious or unconscious).

Eczema and the skin barrier

When the skin barrier isn’t able to work properly

• the skin becomes very dry
• the skin doesn’t have natural fats to help keep moisture in
• the skin isn’t able to function as effectively as a protective barrier
• irritants can enter more easily, causing the skin to itch, and specific triggers or irritants can cause a flare-up of eczema symptoms.

How can we manage the eczema itch?

A healthy skin barrier is really important in managing eczema and controlling the eczema itch. With eczema, we can try to give the skin a barrier by putting a layer on it through regular moisturising. Using a thick or greasy moisturiser not only helps the skin from drying out by stopping water loss, but it also doesn’t evaporate as easily from the skin, so that it can act as a barrier to the skin for a more extended time.

Controlling the eczema itch is particularly important to prevent your little one from scratching and damaging their skin, which can make it more itchy – perpetuating what’s known as the itch-scratch cycle. Broken skin can also be more prone to infections. 

We’ve shared more on this topic and tips to help your little one stop scratching in our blog, How To Help Your Little One Stop Scratching Their Skin. 

This blog post was brought to you and your baby with love from the Itchy Baby Co. team. X

Disclaimer: Information provided is of a general nature only, and you should always consult your medical professional.