How I healed my baby's eczema

My daughter's eczema was severe, kept getting infected, and lasted more than a year. Here's the routine that finally turned it around, and what I'd tell any parent starting out.

I'm a board-certified pediatrician, and I still found my daughter's eczema overwhelming. For over a year her skin flared again and again, and skin infections made every flare worse. We tried cream after cream. What finally worked wasn't one magic product. It was a simple routine, done every day, that went after the three things driving her eczema.

1. I stopped ignoring staph

Most parents never hear this: a common skin bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus (staph), is found on most flaring eczema skin. Staph releases toxins that inflame the skin and make it itch, and scratching opens the skin so more staph gets in. It's also why kids with eczema get skin infections so easily.

Lowering staph on her skin was the turning point for us. Two products made that easy:

• Briotech hypochlorous acid spray: a gentle mist of the same germ-fighting compound the immune system makes. Spray it 3–4 times a day on clean skin and let it air dry.
• CLn BodyWash: a fragrance-free wash with very dilute sodium hypochlorite. It works like an easy bleach bath and has been studied in children with staph-colonized eczema.

2. I treated flares the day they started

This is the step parents are most afraid of, and the one I push hardest. Once the spray has dried, I put the ointments our pediatrician prescribed directly on red, flaring spots: a steroid ointment such as triamcinolone for inflamed patches, and an anti-infective ointment for spots that looked infected.

3. I sealed everything in, twice a day

Over the top of everything goes a thick, plain moisturizer. I like CURAD petroleum jelly tubes because they're cheap enough to keep in every room, and Earth Mama Face, Nose & Cheek Balm for drooly cheeks (patch test first, since it contains calendula). After the bath, we follow the 3-minute rule: pat dry and seal within 3 minutes.

4. I cleared out fragrance and irritants

I switched the whole house to fragrance-free laundry detergent and hand soap, used a fresh disposable cotton towel to pat dry so damp washcloths weren't touching broken skin, and put her in scratch sleeves at night on a breathable crib sheet.

Our daily routine, start to finish

1. Short, lukewarm bath (5–10 minutes), with CLn on infection-prone days.
2. Pat dry with a clean towel.
3. Briotech spray all over the eczema; let it air dry.
4. Prescribed ointment on any red, flaring spots.
5. Thick moisturizer over everything within 3 minutes.
6. Repeat the spray during the day, 3–4 times total.

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