How To Heal Your Baby’s Cracked Lips?

Babies sometimes get dry skin, and their lips might also appear chapped or cracked. This is all the more true in case of newborn babies. According to research, your newborn is more susceptible to skin conditions than other babies.

When babies are in the womb, they are coated in a thick, white substance called vernix, to protect their skin. Once they are born, their body has to self-regulate all its systems including their skin to the environment outside.

Moreover, as the weather starts changing, it brings with it differences in temperature and humidity levels. As a result, your little one’s skin and lips can get dry, which further leads to cracked and chapped lips. Besides dry lips, cracks appearing on the surface of the lips and sore lips having a slightly reddish hue are some of the signs of cracked lips.

Causes Of Cracked Lips In Babies 

Some of the causes of cracked lips in babies are:

1. Dehydration: Dehydration due to dry weather can lead to chapped lips in babies. To add to that, if the number of feeding is not up to the mark for the body, he/ she will not be hydrated enough.

2. Reaction to allergies: Your baby’s sensitive skin can react to a lotion or cream, or even the cloth that is used to drape him. If you are using a certain chapstick and tend to kiss the child often, that, too, can trigger an allergy.

3. Sucking or licking of the lips: The tendency to keep sucking on something is common in the initial weeks. This causes babies to keep poking out their tongue and sucking on their lips. The saliva in the mouth evaporates from the lips gradually, leaving them dry.

4. A tendency to breathe via the mouth: Mouth breathing makes the air around the lips constantly. This air can pick up any moisture that it finds in its path. A blocked nose due to illness often leads to mouth breathing in babies and causes cracked lips.

How Can You Treat A Baby’s Cracked Lips?

Here’s how you can treat cracked lips of your baby:

Petroleum Jelly

Petroleum jelly is mild and has no additives and is a great choice for your baby’s cracked or chapped lips. Made from lanolin, it acts as a potent moisturiser for your baby’s lips and helps to heal the cracks faster.

The presence of lanolin makes it a gentle healer. Use the tiniest amount and spread it across your baby’s lips.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is an age-old remedy for cracked lips. Mums opt for using it as it is readily available at home. The main constituent of the oil is lauric acid which heals your baby’s cracked lips.

Disinfect your finger, dab a little oil on it and rub it on your little one’s lips. You can repeat it multiple times whenever your baby’s lips are dry.

Breast Milk

The safest and the most natural way to heal your baby’s cracked lips is breast milk. You can squeeze out milk from your breast directly onto your baby’s lips. It is advisable not to rub it on the baby’s lips. 

Breast milk allows the lips to be hydrated and is the best option for treating cracked lips.

Use A Baby-Safe Lip Balm

Your baby’s delicate lips need gentle protection from the external environment. Hence, a baby-safe lip balm can be the best to nourish your baby’s lips and treat cracked lips.

Choose the ones that are formulated from natural ingredients like organic castor oil, coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter, organic olive oil, organic jojoba oil, strawberry oil, Vitamin E and beetroot extract, minus all chemicals and toxins.

Feed Them More Regularly

Babies can quickly become dehydrated unless they are fed at regular intervals. Plus, cracked lips can also be a sign of dehydration in a baby who is being fed poorly.

Research suggests that during the first few weeks to the initial months of life, breastfed infants will usually want milk every one to three hours, or about eight to 12 times over 24 hours.

Use A Humidifier

Try to keep the air moist to help prevent a newborn’s skin from drying out. You can use a humidifier to help increase the moisture level in the atmosphere.

This will also help keep your baby’s skin and lips hydrated.

In addition to these, try to cover your baby in proper clothes and protect him/ her from the sun or strong winds as these can all cause dry or cracked lips.

Many cases of chapped lips in babies are resolved without treatment or with use of some of the home remedies. However, if you are concerned that your baby has an underlying health condition or is dehydrated, it is advisable to consult a doctor.