Sunscreen Good or Bad?

Because my daughter is biracial I joined a list of other white parents trying to learn how to best care for their dark skinned child (kids straight from African countries, Hispanic, birracial, Asian). I've learned a lot about hair care and skin care, more than I ever thought possible. Now that summer is approaching (no really, it is) the hot topics are skin protection and scalp protection. Most of the folks on this list use ONLY completely natural products. I'm not that rich. :) But some folks have been sharing articles about the use of sunscreen: which are good, which are bad, and which you should completely avoid. I'm including a website here with different research articles about sun exposure and sunscreen use. Take it all with a grain of salt. They also have a list of "chemical free" sunscreens if the articles scare you too much. Most of these I've only seen on-line or in natural food stores, but more and more of them are starting to show up in the usual stores like Wal-Mart and CVS...

http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/ 

Now a note from many many eye doctors. Your child should be wearing sunglasses! If it's bright enough that you need them then so does your child, yes infants too!

For infants you ca get glasses that have a wrap around band. If you start your children early enough then they don't know any different and it won't be a fight. But really, eye protection from the sun is just as important as skin protection. The absolute best sunglasses will say "polarized" but they are kind of spendy and if you aren't sure you can get your kid to keep them on I'd start with the cheaper ones but make sure they say UVA/UVB protection. (these are from One Step Ahead but I've seen the glasses with the wrap around strap at Target too)