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Health & Fitness

Patch Blog: The Perils of Skincare and Motherhood

New moms and mothers-to-be need to read their beauty labels carefully. Local esthetician and blogger Vanessa discusses which products should be avoided to keep your baby safe.

There isn’t much that comes between a woman and her beauty regimen. Most would be hard-pressed to let anything like sleep deprivation or a budget whittle away at the multistep process of beautification that bookends each day.

Still, there’s one thing that will incite even the biggest product junkies to forego the cornucopia of potions and lotions that makes up the daily ritual: Motherhood.

What skin care should you avoid during pregnancy and breastfeeding? It’s a shame that we don’t have a mandatory rating system—akin to SPF ratings—on cosmetics containers, designed to warn pregnant and breastfeeding women. Until such a system is adopted, each mother or mother-to-be needs to use her own judgment and be aware of a few key ingredients to avoid.

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First and foremost, moderation is key. Avoid heavy uses of any single chemical—as with most diseases and conditions, it is rarely small quantities that compromise health. Second, avoid the temptation to react with alarm to skin issues—hormonal fluctuations will cause changes in your skin during pregnancy.

Ride them out. It’s very likely that in the next trimester or month or week, your physiology will change and you will see a corresponding change in your skin condition. Don’t get caught in a pattern of “chasing” the problem—that is, using active ingredients that have barely begun to take effect when internal conditions fluctuate again.

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Although it’s not available on product labeling, the FDA has developed a rating system to classify the safety of common ingredients for pregnant women. It consists of five categories, each representing increasing danger to the fetus.

Briefly, Category A is safe at all stages of pregnancy. Category B is presumed safe, but only based on animal studies. Ingredients fall into Category B if there are no controlled studies in women or if adverse effects have been shown in animals but then not confirmed in controlled studies with women. In Category C, safety is less certain. Ingredients in this category are shown to be potentially dangerous, based on animal studies. (Category C also includes ingredients that have no studies available at all.)

Category D gets serious. There are studies showing evidence of human fetal risk, and these should obviously be avoided for anything purely cosmetic. Category X carries the strongest recommendations. None of these ingredients should be used during pregnancy under any circumstances because fetal abnormalities can—and do—result from their use.

You may already know that the biggest no-no in skin care during pregnancy is Accutane, labeled Category X, which is a trade name for Isotretinoin. This is a drug prescribed for acne and is strongly linked to severe birth defects. Tetracyclines are labeled as Category D—and they’re particularly dangerous after the first trimester.

There are also a number of widely used Category C ingredients that should be discontinued—and there’s a good chance you’re using some of them. Tretinoin or any of the trade names for Vitamin A topicals (i.e. Retin-A, Differin, Tazarac, Renova) are Category C, as is Salicylic Acid.

The other widely used Category 3 ingredients are Benzoyl Peroxide and corticosterioids (such as Hydrocortisone). Metronidazole and antibiotics such as Clindamycin and Erythromycin are in category B. Services using galvanic current, facial toning, and high frequency must be avoided as well because amniotic fluid acts a conductor. Soy, which is in quite a bit of topical anti-aging skincare, can make melasma conditions worse. Forego soy to avoid suffering from worsening pigmentation issues.

Of course, checking in with your doctor or the manufacturer of your skincare products is a good idea if you’re using medical-grade skin care. Obviously, abstaining from products you’ve been used to can be difficult, especially if the pregnancy “glow” feels more like an oily shine from having to avoid your favorite benzoyl clay mask.

Still, pregnancy and early motherhood can provide a good excuse to try some new products and take a break from the usual lineup. And if you have to knock a couple steps off the evening beauty routine, just cash it in for a few extra minutes of evening foot massage!

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