Parenting Babies, Toddlers & Teens

Posts Tagged ‘ph change’

With my first son, Phillip, we had a great Pediatrician from India. This man was very gentle with babies and you could tell when he held a baby that he loved children. When my son was a few days old, this doctor told me something that I had a difficult time grasping at first. He said, “Don’t wipe your baby’s bottom every time you change the diaper.”

This seemed foreign to me. I listened but I walked away thinking he didn’t know what he was talking about. I was under the impression that I was to clean that baby thoroughly every time I changed him.

Well, I set out to do just what the doctor told me; after all, he was the expert and I was a new mom! I realized somewhere along the line that the doctor was right. The only time I would wipe the baby’s bottom was when he had a bowel movement never when he was wet. Looking back I realized how wise that doctor really was. He understood that the PH of the baby’s skin was the same as the acid in the urine. Rubbing the baby’s sensitive skin 9 or 10 times a day, coupled with the constant PH change was a sure cause of a sore baby bottom. The urine didn’t cause a diaper rash, the wiping did! There was one other culprit that would cause a rash and that was a bowel movement.  Continue Reading... (694 words, 1 image, estimated 2:47 mins reading time)