Baby Care

What Is Impetigo in Kids?


Impetigo is a bacterial skin infection that is common among kids, especially preschool and school-age kids.

This manifest in the form of blisters or sores on the leg, face, hands, and even the diaper area. There are three types of impetigo namely non-bullous (crusted), bullous (large blisters), and ecthyma (ulcers).

Causes of Impetigo

Impetigo is caused either of these two bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus pyogenes (also called group A streptococcus).


Impetigo shows up on the skin as a result of another skin problem like insect bites, cut or scrapes eczema. When a child itches the where the irritation, sore or rash impetigo would likely show up but making your kids wash their hands would prevent it.

Symptoms of Impetigo

Impetigo occurs mostly in the mouth, nose, hands, and diaper area.  Although it could affect any part of the body too.

Impetigo can spread from one person to another this means that it is contagious. When a person touches the infected skin or items that have touched the infected skin it can spread to other parts of the body.

Treatment of Impetigo

When this occurs in kids, it is best to take it to the hospital where the doctor can rightly diagnose and prescribe what is needed to treat impetigo. Impetigo is usually treated with antibiotics.

It is important that the medicine prescribed be taken accordingly to prevent a more serious reoccurrence. As the infection heals, you can wash the skin with a clean cloth, warm water, and antiseptic soap

Preventing Impetigo

  • Enforce hand washing at home
  • Kids should take baths regularly
  • Look out for skin injuries like cuts, scrapes, bites, eczema, and rashes and clean them
  • Where there is already an infection to prevent it from spreading, avoid sharing clothing, sheets, razors, soaps, and towels
  • The clothing of the kid with impetigo should be washed with hot water
  • Keep the surfaces of your kitchen and household clean

Please note that if your child’s skin becomes red, tender and does not show any sign of healing after treatment for three days and fever develops see your doctor immediately.

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The Dangerous Impact Sugar Could Have On Your Baby’s Brain

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The Dangerous Impact Sugar Could Have On Your Baby’s Brain


Kids have sweet-tooth so they are so in love with sweet things but you shouldn’t indulge them all the time. To parents who often pamper their kids with sweet things, you might want to read this article  so you can be motivated to reduce the amount of sugar your child takes.

A new research published in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience says that sugar might have the same impact on a child’s brain as psychological trauma.

Content of the study

Australian and Indian researchers set out at the beginning of their study with a hypothesis: could foods high in sugar and fat assist in regenerating a hippocampus damaged by stress.

The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for short- and long-term memories and your sense of direction. And when it is exposed to stress, conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may set in.


The researchers examined newborn rats who had stress-damaged hippocampi due to poor nesting. In order to see if sugar and fat could ‘heal’ this damage, different groups of the rats were exposed to diets containing various amounts of sugar and fats — and the extreme opposite of the researchers’ original hypothesis was shown to be true.

What they discovered was that sugar (as well as stress) reduced the re-growth of damaged brain cells in the hippocampus by more than 40%, also affecting the ability to learn new things.

What this means is that, consuming too much sugar may result in serious psychiatric issues, similar to those caused by extreme stress.

And even though this study was conducted on rats, the authors caution that “if similar effects occur in humans, early life adversity and high sugar diet may independently increase the risk for psychopathology later in life.”

It was also noted that “limiting consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages across the community may be an effective way to curtail the burden of psychiatric disorders.”

So yeah the study was conducted on rats but would you risk it when there’s a way around it? Simply treating your children to sweet things on rare occasions will do.

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