Skin Spots in Children: What Can it Be?

Measles, rubella, scarlet fever, chickenpox – many childhood diseases initially cause a rash and feverish flu symptoms. However, besides the diseases that immediately come to mind, there are many others with typical skin symptoms. Read here what can be behind a skin rash in children and what you can do about it.

What are the diseases with skin rash?

In addition to the well-known infectious diseases caused by bacteria or viruses, in which the rash usually appears on the whole body, there are also infectious diseases that cause only localized rash. The most common generalized infectious diseases are measles, rubella, scarlet fever, chickenpox, three-day fever, and ringworm, which show a typical distribution pattern of the rash.

Less common are accompanying rashes in gastrointestinal infections, typhoid fever, infectious mononucleosis, toxoplasmosis, typhus, or HIV. In terms of localized infectious diseases, common ones in children include common cold sores (impetigo contagiosa), cold sores (due to herpes simplex), and herpangina.

Skin rash due to allergies

In addition to these localized infections, childhood allergies are also increasingly common, manifesting with redness of the skin either over the entire body or in only some areas of the skin.

In addition, there are various skin diseases such as neurodermatitis and cradle cap, psoriasis, cutaneous porphyria or pemphigus diseases, which, however, can usually be distinguished from infectious and allergic diseases by the history of the disease.

Cancer may also be accompanied by a skin rash, although this is very rare in childhood.