Baby Wipes ‘MI-Free’ Or Not: One Doctor Said Don’t Use Methylisothiazolinone Baby Wipes, Parents Freak Out [Video]
There is a new blog post about baby wipes that has been sending parents into a frenzy. Nearly 90,000 people are currently talking about baby wipes on Facebook and spreading a scary-looking photo of an allergic reaction that one child had after baby wipes were used to clean up his or her mouth.
The article claimed that doctors warn parents never to use baby wipes — ever — all due to something called methylisothiazolinone. In fact one dermatologist shown in the below News 12 report does in fact say that she warns parents to never use baby wipes on their children. Some children can indeed have an allergic reaction to methylisothiazolinone, and once those children who exhibited problems with baby wipes had parents who stopped using the baby wipes on them, their skin conditions improved.
However, the baby wipes danger might have been overblown.
With a title like “Doctor’s Warning: Never Clean Your Child With Baby Wipes No Matter What,” including the scary-looking photo of a child with a bad reaction on the mouth, it’s no wonder such an article would go viral.
According to Snopes, the article contained a mixture of the truth, with the HealthEternally.com article putting parents in a quandary about ditching convenient, store-bought baby wipes and sending them to the web to figure out how to make their own baby wipes.
As reported by Pediatrics, a small number of children had an issue with methylisothiazolinone in baby wipes, but didn’t tell all parents to avoid all baby wipes for all children. Therefore, according to experts, parents can rest assured that they don’t need to throw away all the baby wipes in their households and that there’s no need to discontinue buying baby wipes, as long as their children don’t react negatively to any methylisothiazolinone in their baby wipes.
Since the original study was from 2014, some makers of baby wipes have come up with “natural” or “MI-free” baby wipes.
A search for “MI free” baby wipes on Google turns up plenty of results for products like Huggies Natural Care Wipes, which are fragrance-free and hypoallergenic.
On Facebook, Huggies wrote a reply about their baby wipes to a concerned person recently.
“Nothing is more important than the health and safety of the families who use our products. We evaluated alternative preservative options perfect for babies with allergic sensitivity to MI preservatives and we’re pleased to say that all of our baby wipes transitioned to our MI-free formula in 2014.”
The popular baby wipes maker Pampers stated that Pampers Baby wipes and diapers do not contain methylisothiazolinone or methylchloroisothiazolinone. However, these new findings haven’t stopped folks from sharing articles like one from 2014 from the Daily Mail, with a scary headline that stated, “The horrific damage BABY WIPES can do to children’s skin: Chemical in the wipes can cause an itchy red rash.”
“Dr. Robin Gehris, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, says the number of children suffering from these reactions is increasing. She believes this could be because the amount of MI in baby wipes has been increased.”
Even parents who’ve used baby wipes for years without any problems would likely be scared by such incendiary, screaming words.
Meanwhile, other people are noting that they can only use certain brands of baby wipes without having an issue.
“The only wipe I can use is Pampers Sensitive.”
Other people are claiming that baby wipes with chemicals in them aren’t good for the earth, while others are praising the virtues of baby wipes on social medial, due to all the convenient uses that baby wipes possess.
“I never realized baby wipes can come so handy when removing clown paint.”
[Featured Image by Ed Andrieski/AP Images]
