There are lots of oth­er rash­es that are typ­i­cal of new­born ba­bies.

Af­ter all, they come out of this warm, clean, oily, pro­tect­ed en­vi­ron­ment in­to damp­ness, dust and dank­ness, where, too of­ten, the first thing that hap­pens is that some un­known peo­ple take you away from your moth­er and push, prod and put you in­to a mir­rored jail, where strangers peep at you and make strange sounds.

It’s no won­der their amyg­dalas, im­mune sys­tems and skin re­act, some­times as fierce­ly as they cry de­spair­ing­ly for ‘hand’.

So it is un­sur­pris­ing that a num­ber of skin con­di­tions are present al­most from birth, guar­an­teed to scare the sur­round­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers. One won­ders whether it was bet­ter in the old days, when the fa­ther would pull out a fifth and some cig­ars and re­tire with friends to some­where out of sight and hear­ing of the help­less crea­ture, to toast the moth­er and new­born.

The skin rash­es that may be present im­me­di­ate­ly at birth have nasty names. Der­ma­tol­o­gists are like that; they love colour­ful skins and names.

There’s the won­der­ful­ly named tran­sient neona­tal pus­tu­lar melanosis (TNPM). De­spite its alarm­ing name and ap­pear­ance, this rash can be fright­en­ing, but TNPM is harm­less.

It con­sists of thin-walled blis­ters (the pus­tules) that can be present at birth but quick­ly rup­ture, leav­ing a col­larette of fine scales and dark spots (melanosis). It does in­volve the palms and soles, and there’s no sur­round­ing ha­lo of red­ness. The skin re­turns to its nor­mal smooth­ness with­in a cou­ple of weeks.

Mil­ia (above) are tiny, firm, white-to-yel­low bumps that are usu­al­ly present at birth or ap­pear with­in a few days. Mil­ia is the plur­al form of the Latin word mil­i­um, which means mil­let seed, which they ap­par­ent­ly re­sem­ble. They are trapped dead skin cells that form cysts be­low the sur­face of the skin and are com­mon­ly known as “milk spots”. They ap­pear main­ly on the fore­head, cheeks and nose.

Treat­ment isn’t nec­es­sary be­cause mil­ia are harm­less and go away on their own af­ter a few weeks. In­ter­est­ing­ly, adults can get mil­ia too, and they are not con­ta­gious!

Bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions such as im­peti­go, caused by strep­to­coc­cal or staphy­lo­coc­cal bac­te­ria, can ap­pear soon af­ter birth as vesi­cles and pus­tules (types of blis­ters) on any part of the body, but may al­so be ac­com­pa­nied by sys­temic signs of ill­ness: lethar­gy, poor feed­ing and, oc­ca­sion­al­ly, fever. This is an emer­gency re­quir­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and in­tra­venous an­tibi­otics. If not treat­ed, mor­tal­i­ty is 100 per cent.

Her­pes sim­plex virus (HSV) is the most sig­nif­i­cant of new­born rash­es. It ap­pears in the first week of life. It looks like groups of small blis­ters on top of a red­dish base. It’s im­por­tant to recog­nise be­cause it can evolve in­to sys­temic or lo­calised dis­ease, re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate hos­pi­tal treat­ment and an­tivi­ral drugs.

Mil­iaria rubra is the sci­en­tif­ic name for the com­mon heat rash known up North as ‘prick­ly heat’ be­cause it is caused by over­heat­ing the ba­by and it itch­es. Mil­iaria al­so comes from the Latin word mil­i­um, or mil­let seed. It refers to the tiny, seed-sized bumps or blis­ters that ap­pear on the skin when sweat ducts are blocked. Rubra comes from the Latin ru­ber, mean­ing red.

It ap­pears as tiny, red­dish bumps in ar­eas prone to fric­tion and heavy sweat­ing, such as the neck, up­per chest, back, skin folds and groin. It is rare to find it on the face. It hap­pens when sweat ducts be­come blocked, trap­ping sweat and caus­ing lo­cal in­flam­ma­tion.

A new­born ba­by is not con­sid­ered Caribbean un­til they have got heat rash. I am not sure where the habit of over­dress­ing new­born ba­bies in the Caribbean comes from.

It might be an old, passed-on rec­ol­lec­tion of see­ing Eu­ro­pean moth­ers over­pro­tect their ba­bies in the trop­ics, in the mis­tak­en be­lief that they are liv­ing in Ed­in­burgh, or it might come from the many Nan­cy tales about ba­bies get­ting sick be­cause the “mole”, or an­te­ri­or fontanelle, was left un­cov­ered.

The treat­ment is to cool down the ba­by.

Heat rash, al­though harm­less in it­self, is as­so­ci­at­ed with fever fits, or febrile con­vul­sions, which can oc­cur when a ba­by is ill and has a fever, and ef­forts are ei­ther made to have the ba­by “sweat it out” by pil­ing clothes on top of the ba­by, or, in the mis­tak­en be­lief that sick ba­bies must be pro­tect­ed from the “dew”, the ba­by is made to wear the win­ter coat that Aun­tie Mil­lie sent down from Brook­lyn.

Thank­ful­ly, fever fits are harm­less.