Primary care pediatricians have issued a statement to request that precautions be taken to avoid drowning on beaches and swimming pools, as well as a list of alerts and recommendations for this summer. Among them, they repeat that you have to be more careful with the sun to avoid skin burns that still come to the consultation, and they also warn about henna tattoos, “because they can damage the skin even in the long term.”
In recent years, henna tattoos have become very fashionable, especially in summer, both among adults and children. Natural henna is not a problem, but there are more and more tattoo artists, on the beach or in beach bars, who offer black henna, so that the drawing is darker, more visible, and lasts longer.
“We have received cases of children with skin problems. Henna is a natural colouring, but some tattoo artists add a very sensitizing substance for the skin, paraphenylenediamine (PPD), a substance that is added to mascaras, dyes…”, Teresa Cenarro, pediatrician and vice president of Henna, explains to Rac1.cat. the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatricians, the body that issued the alert statement.
“In tattoos that are done at fairs, festivals or beaches, it is difficult to know if PPD has been added to the henna,” adds Cenarro. The PPD generates an excess of sensitivity, blisters and extreme redness appear in the area of ??the drawing. “It’s a severe inflammatory reaction.”
In addition, when this lesion passes, “the tattoo leaves a white lesion on the skin, and topical corticosteroids have to be applied. This reaction can be severe and painful, and you can be tattooed for life, a mark remains on the skin. In addition, in the long term the area is already sensitized, and if in the future the person uses mascara, dyes or creams with PPD or similar substances, an allergic contact reaction, dermatitis, may appear.
Dr. Cenarro explains the recent case of a patient, a child who came to the office with blisters in the shape of a scorpion. “The best thing, if you don’t know if the henna has PPD, is not to get the tattoo,” she warns. If the henna is natural and does not have additives, “it does not cause problems, there are many families from other cultures that tattoo many young children, and nothing happens, it is a natural pigment, from a plant that does not cause reactions. The problem is what is added to the henna”.
Now there is this alert from primary care pediatricians for the cases that have been seen in children, but already in 2015 the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products warned that black henna tattoos represented a health risk. “Paraphenylenediamine, or PPD, is prohibited for direct use on the skin, since it can trigger severe allergic skin reactions.”
According to the Spanish Medicines Agency, the symptoms of these allergic reactions can appear up to several weeks after its application and can cause the patient to need urgent medical attention or even hospitalization.
This news was originally published on the RAC1 website
