Hair or stubble on the back of a newborn: the causes of the appearance and methods of removal

The dark bristle on the back of the newborn looks scary. But is she as scary as scared parents seem? Why does hard hair appear on the back of a baby and what to do with it, we will tell in this article.

The existence of the bristles of newborns is actively challenged by traditional medicine and is no less actively supported by unconventional. In the people, this strange phenomenon is called the "poker" or "tickler." The presence of such a phenomenon is said when dark, hard, like needles, hair is visible through the delicate and thin skin of an infant. It is believed that they are the cause of anxiety of the newborn - the child may not sleep well, often cry, arch his back, if you put it horizontally.

“Spines” are suspected even when the hairs are not visually distinguishable, but the child is very worried. Alternative medicine describes the condition as the growth of abnormal hair due to excessive work of hair follicles, but for some reason the hair is more dense than the gun, and have no access to the surface. Located between the dermis and the epidermis, they cause a child to have a condition that can be compared with the state of an adult who lies on glass wool with a bare back.

Doctors deny the existence of such a disease in principle. They point out that it is wrong to call such hair a bristle. Correct to talk about lanugo. These are hairs that grow on the body of a child while still in the womb. Lanugo appears after 12 weeks of pregnancy and gradually disappears by the time of delivery. It has no color, and the hairs themselves are distinguished by excellent subtlety and weightlessness.

This thin hair helps to keep the original lubricant, which until a certain point covers the entire body of the fetus. When the skin becomes multi-layered and able to protect the child, lanugo begins to fall out. Scientists tend to believe that this mechanism is an atavism - a borrowed sign of distant ancestors. Among other atavism can be noted embryonic tail and gills in the early stages of pregnancy.

Sometimes certain factors interfere with lanugo fallout processes, which have not been fully studied, and the child is born with a partially intact hair. Then these first hairs fall out after birth within a few weeks. If the loss for some reason is delayed, some disruption in the work of the hair follicles is not excluded, due to which more dense hairs, “spines”, appear.

According to official medicine, this phenomenon does not pose any danger in itself, and therefore no treatment is provided for it. But such an explanation does not satisfy the parents, who have not slept for several days because of the constant anxiety of the newborn child.

For a start, a mom and dad of a crying baby should make sure that the reasons for crying do not lie in something else. Babies can cry for a variety of reasons - from hunger, cold or heat, raw diapers or uncomfortable diapers, pain.If the toddler is well-fed, clean, the room is cool and humid enough, the diaper does not cause allergies, the child is healthy and does not arouse suspicion of the pediatrician, but the roar is such that the neighbors have already asked several times if everything in the family is in order. detect the seta if it is not visually visible.

Diagnosis of an indistinguishable bristle, which can be safely hidden from the eyes of others in the layers of the skin, will require some patience from the parents. First, the child should be bathed in warm water, well-skinned, then gently blot her with a sheet or a soft diaper. Avoid hard towels and rubbing movements.

On the back of the baby should drip a little breast milk, if the mother is breastfeeding him. For the detection of "poker" in babies who are bottle-fed, you can use baby cream. Milk or cream is rubbed into the skin of the back with soft movements for a long time, until dark, almost black dots appear. If they manifest themselves, you can immediately proceed to rolling out the seta, that is, to rid the child of suffering. To do this, you can use one of the methods described.

For such a method is not suitable bread or roll, bought in the store. Bread parents will have to bake on their own. The dough should be made classic, on the dough. From the still-warm homemade bread, take a piece of the crumb the size of a tennis ball and roll it up. Further, with intensive circular motions, roll this ball along the back of the child. It is desirable to capture and shoulder area, and forearms.

Usually hard and spiky hair remains on the bread crumb, and the skin of the child becomes smooth and tender. If everything is done correctly, the baby will sleep more calmly.

Remove the bristles usually allows a chicken egg. It should be boiled hard-boiled, cooled to a warm state, cleaned. A warm egg rolls out the skin of the back similarly with breadcrumbs. If done correctly, the hard bristles will begin to leave their place, giving the child noticeable relief.

The dough for the procedure can be made of two types - either liquid, like pancakes, or thick, like homemade noodles. In the first case, flour, sunflower oil and warm water are used. While still warm, the dough is spread on the hairy back of the child, lightly rubbed into the skin, after which the baby is wrapped in a diaper and left for 15 minutes. After removing the diaper, the hard “spikes” usually remain on the diaper.

The second method involves the preparation of thick and elastic dough from the same ingredients. A ball the size of a tennis ball is molded out of it; they make circular movements with this ball with a slight pressure on the skin of the back.

A child with a bristle or a gun on the back should be bathed gently and carefully. Hygiene procedures will help to get rid of the seta not immediately, but the result is sure to be. Bathing water should be of a certain temperature - not higher than 37 degrees. Soaps and gels for skin care are best not to use. If desired, a glass of chamomile decoction can be added to the water.

Parents can find a lot of tips on bristle removal on the Internet, but we’ve described above only the child’s safe ways to pull out hard and unpleasant hair. The remaining methods can be dangerous to the health and even life of the baby. Let's talk about this in more detail.

Advisors who recommend taking the child to the bath should be sent there too. Steaming in the bath of a newborn is absolutely contraindicated. The skin of the baby is thin, the grid of blood vessels is located close to the surface, the thermoregulation of the baby is different from the adult, and therefore even a short stay in the bath can lead to hyperthermia with all the ensuing consequences - disruption of the central nervous system. Overheating can be deadly for a baby.

Advice to apply something and combine with food film wrappings is generally extremely harmful and can have the most negative consequences - from blockage of sweat and sebaceous glands and the occurrence of skin rashes to overheating of the body and the death of the child.

Parents should understand that it is impossible to shave or cut tough bristles. Mechanical removal may entail subsequent infection and the development of severe systemic infection. Plucking and removing with scissors increases the chance of injury to the skin, and also causes severe pain to the baby.

On the stubble in newborns and the need for its treatment, see the following video.