Getting in touch with baby's skin
You only have to touch a baby's amazingly soft skin to know it is more delicate and fragile than your own. And the JOHNSON'S® Brand research has shown just how different a baby's skin is from an adult's.
Skin acts as a protective barrier, the first line of defense against outside organisms, toxins, irritants and allergens. Baby's skin, which is thinner than yours and which continues to develop through the first year of life, is more vulnerable to irritants. These differences make it essential to help protect your baby's skin from irritants and a harsh environment. Determining what makes your baby's delicate skin unique and how best to protect it has been the focus of years of JOHNSON'S® research. To this day, we continue to study baby's skin of all types, using non-invasive measurement techniques and clinical assessments by dermatologists and pediatricians. At the JOHNSON'S® Brand, we've become quite expert at making babies and their mothers feel safe and comfortable as we conduct our assessments. And by comparing baby skin to adult skin, we can start to really understand its uniquely different needs.
While your baby's skin is naturally more hydrated than your own during the first 12 months of life, it can also lose water more quickly. In a research study where 60% of the babies involved demonstrated clinically visible dry skin, 90% of the mothers surveyed thought their baby's skin was not dry. Thanks to years of ongoing research, we know that skin needs appropriate hydration to remain healthy, and skin that is too dry can lead to skin barrier disruption— and even infection. As your baby matures and becomes more active, chances are you'll wash her face and hands more, which may also lead to skin dryness.
We've also learned just how important it is to maintain baby's skin barrier. Since maintaining a healthy skin barrier helps protect against skin breakdown and infections, your baby needs special, gentle cleansing with products that are not drying and which help maintain her skin's natural moisture balance.
Keeping babies clean is essential to overall good health, and skin hygiene plays a large role in baby wellness. Proper cleansing helps keep the skin free of unwanted substances, including dirt, transient germs, and irritants such as those from saliva, nasal secretions, urine, and feces (including fecal enzymes). Maintaining a clean diaper area helps prevent skin breakdown, rash and infection. And keeping hands clean, particularly in the case of babies and their hand-mouth behaviors, can help reduce or prevent oral transmission of microbial contaminants. Special attention should also be paid to the facial area, where vulnerable skin can be easily irritated by milk, food and saliva. Similarly, skin folds and creases should be kept clean.
You can read here how these discoveries led to the creation of our CLINICALLY PROVEN MILDNESS® formula.
