I cured son’s eczema with soap bars made from my breast milk
Joy found rash remedy for tot was right under her nose
We got to the point of trying anything. I thought: Why not? JOY EVANS BREASTFEEDING MUM
BY JESSICA CRIPPS A MUM cured her son’s chronic eczema with an organic soap she made using old breast milk.
Joy Evans, 35, tried GP-prescribed steroid treatments and every cream and remedy she could find for nearly a year.
But Finlay still suffered from itchy red patches of dry skin that he couldn’t stop scratching on his arms, knees, thighs and shoulders.
Then Joy, from Edinburgh, stumbled upon the unlikely remedy online in July and tried washing his skin with stale expressed breast milk from her freezer.
Within one month, his eczema was gone.
She said: “We’d had steroid treatments from the GP, and emollient creams and other over-thecounter stuff to try and help his eczema.
“But nothing was working, or it would work for a short time but then the eczema would just come back.
“Steroid creams took the redness out of it but wouldn’t clear it. Nothing totally got rid of it.
“We got to the point of wanting to try anything. I was scouring the internet for ideas and tips. So when we came across this one I just thought, why not?”
The mum of four couldn’t believe it worked so quickly. She said: “I had some old expressed breast milk that was too old for him to drink still in the freezer, and just decided to give it a go.
“One day at baby group he had been stripped down to his nappy because they were doing messy play. I just looked at him and thought, ‘It’s all gone’. I was amazed.”
She added: “It comes out like a normal bar of soap but a little bit softer. I presume it’s because of the fat in the breast milk although I don’t know the science behind it.
“We just use that in the bath, no bubbles or anything else, just the soap to wash him from top to bottom.”
Joy, a breastfeeding peer support worker, plans to keep a supply to treat any other skin conditions Finlay, now 20 months old, may develop.
“If it can help his eczema, as a mum I sit and I think, ‘If he gets chicken pox, will it help with that?’
“It might help loads of skin conditions he may get later in life. It’s worth a shot.”