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Treating Sunburn in Children |
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 Your baby's skin: soft, sweet-smelling, vulnerable. You notice that when you're diapering: irritation develops easily; a soothing cream clears it up like magic.
Young skin heals faster than older skin, but it is also less able to protect itself from injury, including injury from the sun.
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One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life. A person's risk for melanoma also doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns at any age. |
Babies under six months of age should never be exposed to the sun. Babies older than six months should be protected from the sun, and wear UV-blocking sunglasses to protect their eyes. However, if your child is sunburned:
- For a baby under one year old, sunburn should be treated as an emergency. Call your doctor immediately.
- For a child one year or older, call your doctor if there is severe pain, blistering, lethargy, or fever over 101 F (38.3 C).
- Sunburn can cause dehydration. Give your child water or juice to replace body fluids, especially if your child is not urinating regularly.
- Give acetominophen if your child's temperature is above 101 F.
- Baths in clear, tepid water may cool the skin.
- Light moisturizing lotion may sooth the skin, but do not rub it in. If touching the skin is painful, don't use lotion.
- Dabbing on plain calamine lotion may help, but don't use one with an added antihistamine.
- Do not apply alcohol, which can overcool the skin.
- Do not use any medicated cream — hydrocortisone, benzocaine — unless your baby's doctor tells you to.
- Keep your child out of the sun entirely until the sunburn heals.
- Familarize yourself with the rules of sun protection, and make sure that no matter where you child goes — daycare, play dates, nursery school — sun safety is taken into account.
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