The days when children were advised to “sunbathe” are gone. Now scientists are calling for children, especially small ones, to be especially protected from the sun.
Dermatologists urge infants up to 6 months of age not to be exposed to the sun even for a while (it is estimated that a person becomes able to tan only in the second month of life, but still has skin very sensitive to sunlight).
There are several reasons:
- Children’s skin is thin and the sun’s rays penetrate deeper.
- Children’s skin has less melanin. Melanin is a brown skin pigment that is produced by special cells. Thanks to it, we sunbathe, but also – most importantly – protects against the harmful effects of radiation. The less it is, the more exposed the skin is to burns and mutagenic processes in cells.
- There are many stem cells in the basal layer of a baby’s skin, which are easily mutated by sunlight.
- Children, especially small ones, are more easily sunburned than adults – this means that even short-term exposure to the sun can cause sunburn.
- Childhood sunburn has been shown to be one of the potent factors in the development of melanoma in adulthood.
As a rule, older children should also be protected from the sun, and in addition, those parts of the body that may be exposed to it should be covered with a protective cream with filters of not less than 30, and if the child has a light skin phototype, use a cream with a filter above 50.