Well, bit of a setback yesterday. I went to change a dipe yesterday morning and noticed (SPOILER ALERT: somewhat graphic stuff coming, skip to next ‘graf if you need to) some large, adult-sized pimples in his diaper area. I’ve seen diaper rash before, and this wasn’t it–very red, inflamed looking whiteheads. totally gross.
My sister (who was up visiting from Chicago and is the mom of three) said she’s never seen anything like it. My mom thought it was just a bad diaper rash. Nevertheless, I called the pediatrician, figuring, hey, this is why we have insurance, right? She was stymied by my description as well and b/c he’s still so young, she asked me to come in right away to have it checked out.
So we get there, and I’m still assuming it’s sort of nothing and the medical student takes a look and doesn’t say much and then the doc comes in, takes one look and says, “That’s a staph infection.”
Ohmigod, poor little guy. and i am the worst mom or what?? how did he pick that up??? The doc says everyone has staph on their skin and sometimes with newborns the skin gets irritated in the diaper area, providing an entrance for the staph bacteria. At any rate, the doc cultured one of the blemishes, and will let me know for sure today or tomorrow if it’s staph, but he said he was fairly certain. In the meantime, the treatment is to wash the affected area with Dial soap three times a day and apply a prescription topical antibiotic 3x as well, for 10 days. If this doesn’t resolve things, we move to an oral antibiotic.
Keep your fingers crossed that this goes away quickly. Poor little guy.
On the plus side, they weighed him at the doctor’s office and he’s up to 8lbs 2oz, wooo-hooo!
And, he got to meet his Aunt Rose and cousin Claire yesterday, so it was just an action-packed day. He ended up sleeping like a log from 4-7pm, and again from about 10-12, and then again from 1-4am, so that’s some pretty good sleep blocks.
here are a few new pics. Henry with Aunt Rose:
Henry with his cousin Claire:
