What's the Safest Way to Treat Acne When You're Pregnant
Some skin medication is not baby-safe. (Photo: Brooke Slezak)
Last week, we received a question on Facebook from Machae, who’s experiencing some serious breakouts while during her pregnancy. “Is there something safe I can use? These zits hurt soooo bad,” she asked. “Most women will get acne when they’re pregnant,” says Michele Green, a dermatologist in New York City and one of the consulting experts behind SkinBetter, our free skin-analysis tool. “The increased levels of hormones in the first trimester cause the skin to produce more of its own natural oils, which leads to breakouts. It’s not you or your diet—it’s the hormones. The good news is that they usually calm down by the second term.”
You do, however, need to be extra careful about what ingredients you’re slathering on your skin. Avoid topical creams that contain retinol, alpha hydroxy acids, and salicylic acid, Green says, because while the actual amount of those ingredients that your skin absorbs is small, they can still get into the blood stream.
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That certainly narrows treatments down by a lot. So what can you do? “Washing your face with a cleanser that contains salicylic acid is fine because it rinses right off,” says Diane Berson, a dermatologist in New York City who also worked on SkinBetter with us. But your safest bet is to head to your dermatologist for treatment. “There are some topical antibiotics that your dermatologist can prescribe that are safe to use,” Green says. And if zits are especially painful and itchy, in-office treatments like anti-inflammatory injections and blue-light phototherapy work, too, Berson says. “The goal is to be as healthy as you can be for your baby, so it’s always better to be safe and run any treatment recommendations by your obstetrician first,” she says.
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Allure has teamed up with SkinBetter, a free tool that uses imaging software to give you a cutting-edge skin analysis and dermatologist-approved product recommendations. Upload a selfie to get started now.
By Catherine Devine
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