Does your baby have cradle cap? This is (probably) what's causing it.

Cradle cap is one of those pesky skin issues that affects most babies (around 70% of them), usually in the first three months of their lives.

Both of my little ones ended up with it and I remember spending swathes of time carefully massaging their scalps, fishing out crusty yellow flakes with a fine-tooth comb.

The defining feature of cradle cap is a patch (or multiple patches) of scaly skin that form a crust and then flake off.

It typically occurs on the scalp and face (mainly the eyebrows), but sometimes also the nappy area.

The scales look similar on all skin tones, according to the NHS, “but the skin under the scales may look pink or red if your baby has white skin, or lighter or darker than the surrounding skin if your baby has brown or black skin”.

So, what causes cradle cap? And how on earth do you get rid of it?

The cause of cradle cap

Experts aren’t 100% clear on what causes cradle cap however there is a dominant theory.

The issue, which is also known as seborrhoeic dermatitis, is thought to develop in babies who produce more oil from the sebaceous glands in their skin,

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