Could Vanity Give Your Baby Eczema?

It’s a common medical opinion that atopic baby eczema is triggered by allergens in affected people. But would we ever have dreamed that a common character flaw such as vanity might be a possible cause of infantile eczema? Perhaps it would be more to the point to say that practices brought about by vanity could be a trigger rather than the actual personal shortcoming alone.

Baby ear piercing has always been popular in many cultures. Current fashion trends even make it stylish to get baby boys’ ears pierced. The connection between infant eczema and vanity would be that style and fashion are often connected with personal vanity. Many experts are now of the opinion that ear piercing could possibly be responsible for some cases of eczema.

Ear piercing involves putting a hole in the earlobe just large enough for the metal post or wire holding the decorative portion of the earring to pass through. The hole punched in the lobe is not the potential culprit for skin problems. The exposure to heavy metals in the pierced earrings such as nickel and cobalt may be the trigger for a case of eczema.

There are results from studies that showed a much larger percentage of young girls with pierced ears developed allergic skin reactions than girls who had no piercings. In a similar test performed on young men, metal hypersensitivity was much higher among those with piercings. These statistics evidenced by these studies relate exposure to nickel and cobalt to atopic eczema and identify these metals as allergens to much of the population.

I have nothing against dressing babies up in their pretty clothes or even jewelry, but shouldn’t we as parents draw the line when the need to decorate our children might cause problems? Are we willing for reasons associated with vanity to take the risk?