Vernix caseosa is a white, cheese-like substance that coats a fetus’s skin, preventing cracking and wrinkling. It may also protect against infection and help cleanse the skin. Premature babies are often completely covered in it, while full-term babies may have only some left. It is usually shed soon after birth, but some parents choose to massage it into their baby’s skin as a natural moisturizer.
Vernix caseosa is a white substance that coats the skin of a fetus. This natural coating helps prevent cracking and wrinkling of the baby’s skin. Since babies spend months in the amniotic fluid, this substance serves an extremely important purpose. In fact, vernix may even help protect a child’s skin from infection, as the proteins within it have antibiotic properties. This substance can also help cleanse a baby’s skin while it is still in the womb and help make it easier for a baby to move through its mother’s birth canal.
The term vernix caseosa is Latin. Vernix means paint, which is a reasonable description of this protective substance. Caseosa means cheese, which is also quite accurate, as the substance is white and cheesy or waxy in appearance. This substance comes from a baby’s sebaceous glands and is made up of oil and skin cells that have been scraped off.
Typically, babies are born with the vernix still in place, although babies born after a full-term pregnancy are likely to have only some of this coating left. Premature babies, on the other hand, are often completely covered in it. The reason for this difference is a chemical that stimulates the production of amniotic fluid. After a baby’s lungs have fully developed, which typically occurs near full-term birth, they produce a chemical that causes the body to make more amniotic fluid; this appears to cause some deterioration of the vernix layer. Because premature babies are often born before the lungs fully develop, this deterioration may not occur before birth.
Without this substance, a child’s skin may not only appear cracked, but also very wrinkled. It might look like how a person’s skin takes care of after being soaked in a bath for an extremely long time. This protective coating, however, allows a baby’s skin to be smooth and soft at birth, despite spending months on fluids.
Often, newborns are shown completely clean in birthing scenes on television. Usually, the opposite is true, and real newborns have blood, other fluids, and vernix on their bodies when fresh from the womb. New parents may only see this coating briefly, however, as it is usually shed soon after birth. Sometimes, however, parents may choose to massage it into their baby’s skin, hoping that their newborns will benefit from this natural moisturizer, even after birth.
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