Don't Burn, Baby, Burn

The Sun's Effect on Baby's Skin

By April Clarke

Tally Thrasher has never wanted to see the sun treat her son the same way it did when she was a kid. Thrasher, a red-haired, fair-skinned mother of a preschooler from Indianapolis, says growing up in an era when sunscreen wasn't so in demand was not always fun in the sun.

"What I remember most about being a fair-skinned little kid was the sunscreen my parents never put on me," Thrasher says. "It was so crazy, too, because every summer I would get horrible sun poisoning that would cause big, awful rashes on me, and sometimes it was so bad I would get high fevers. It happened almost every summer. But in the '70s and '80s, not much emphasis was placed on the importance of sunscreen."

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), research exhibits a link between childhood sunburns and melanoma/skin cancer risk in adulthood. Thrasher says she follows advice from her pediatrician in helping her son Jake – who is not as fair-skinned – avoid dangerous burns early in his life.

"My son is a completely different matter," says Thrasher. "One of my fears was that he would have fair skin like me. He does not get a ... tan by any stretch, but he can get a tan, which is definitely a step up from my almost-dead white complexion. He was 3 to 6 months old during his first summer and we had a membership to the neighborhood pool that I planned to take full advantage of. All the sunscreens out there say not for infants younger than 6 months of age."

Want to see more?

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• Fun in the Sun: Crafts That Capture the Essence of Summer
• Baby, It's Hot Outside! The Effects of Summer Heat on Infants
• Talk about it!