Polka dots, freckles and sun protection in children and babies

Should we worry about moles and freckles of children? In this interview with Dr. Ángela Hernández Martín , dermatologist from Hospital Niño Jesús , from Madrid, you will discover why children's skin is more sensitive to solar radiation and how to act and identify some alteration in moles and in the

Should we worry about moles and freckles of children? In this interview with Dr. Ángela Hernández Martín, dermatologist from Hospital Niño Jesús, from Madrid, you will discover why children's skin is more sensitive to solar radiation and how to act and identify some alteration in moles and in the freckles of children's skin.

Precautions with moles and freckles of children

The thickness of the skin and the lower number of melanocytes is enough reason for children to be more sensitive to the effect of solar radiation and, if we add to that, children children spend more hours in the sun than an adult, proportionally increases vulnerability. The little boy is all day in the pool, on the beach or playing in the yard and this causes them to accumulate a very important amount of solar radiation. In fact, it is estimated that half of the radiation that one will receive in all his life, is received in the first 18 years of life.

Why is the skin of babies and children more sensitive to solar radiation?
The child population is extraordinarily sensitive to solar radiation for different reasons. First, by the thickness of the skin. Children have a thinner skin and the barrier effect that could exert on solar radiation is less than the skin of the adult. In addition, young children have fewer melanocytes until about the first year of life and this causes them to absorb more radiation. The melanocyte is the cell of the skin that gives pigmentation and that makes individuals with darker skin have greater protection against individuals with whiter skin or very clear phototype.

Should we have any kind of precaution of moles on the skin of children?
Periodic monitoring of pigmented lesions should be done. The pigmented lesions are very frequent, they are called nebus or in more colloquial lunar language, and have a certain risk of becoming bad with the influence of solar radiation. Active prevention should be done using sunscreens. You have to use sunscreen since the child is tiny, applying the creams in a sufficient amount, several times a day, avoiding sun exposure in the central hours of the day: from 12:00 to 17:00 in the afternoon. It is even good to use and accustom children to do all outdoor exercises with a shirt, using what is called a physical barrier that is truly effective. The only protection that realizes an absolute blockade on the rays of the sun are the t-shirts, the clothes.
This precaution is valid both on the skin that has nebus or moles and on the skin that is totally healthy, because you can have a skin cancer on the mole, but also on the skin that you have on your side, so you have to protect everything homogeneously and in the proper way.

Marisol Nuevo.Guiainfantil.com