'My baby got sunburnt in three hours, in Scotland - I won't make same mistake'

A mum has told of her horror after her baby daughter suffered severe burns despite wearing factor 50 sun cream - on an overcast day in Scotland. Lauren Leishman, 22, took 12-month-old tot Rhegan on a family day out to a farm show in Haddington, East Lothian, on Saturday, June 28.

The weather was chilly and both she and Rhegan's dad, Kai, wore jumpers, but Lauren still applied sun cream on her little girl "just to be safe". They were only outside for three hours, but later that day baby Rhegan was "literally bright glowing red".

By the next morning, to Lauren's horror, her daughter's face and hands were covered in huge, fluid-filled blisters. Rhegan was rushed to the Royal Hospital for Children & Young People in Edinburgh, where she was treated - and a nurse warned her face would peel back to raw skin.

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Lauren, a carer, from Dalkeith, Midlothian, said: "It's such a wee shame. I just want to make other people aware. It's Scotland, how can she burn that badly with sun cream? It's crazy. She's in agony."

Lauren said the family had gone to a local farm show that morning, and the weather was completely overcast, with highs of just 18C. "It was such an overcast day, we both had jumpers on," she said.

"It was chilly and I actually remember thinking to myself 'do I bother with sun cream or not?' and I thought 'I'll just put it on just to be safe'."

She applied Malibu Kids Factor 50 sun cream, labelled as "high protection" and "clinically proven to be kind to skin". Lauren said: "We were out from half ten until half one, came home and she was sleeping in the car seat and when she woke up and we had a look at her she was literally bright glowing red.

"The highest recorded temperature on Saturday was 18 degrees. And that would have been later in the afternoon, so we would have been home by then." Lauren initially applied aloe vera and aftersun, but Rhegan's condition worsened overnight.

She said: "She woke up in the morning and she was just so blistered. Huge big filled blisters. So as soon as we saw we took her right to hospital.

"I just felt panic straight away and just the guilt was awful."

Doctors were "shocked" by the injuries and treated Rhegan with ointment. They advised she stay indoors for a minimum of two weeks. Lauren said: "She's in agony and every time I have to put the cream on her I literally have to pin her down to put it on.

"It's so sore for her. It’s open skin I’m having to touch with the cream."

Lauren said she trusted the sun cream because it was labelled as a kids' factor 50 product. But she'll never use it again. She said: "It's so, so sad and you feel so guilty but you just look at a bottle and think factor 50 for kids, perfect, what can go wrong?

"You just think that if they’ve got sun cream on they can go and play in the sun but we weren't even abroad we were literally on our doorstep in Scotland, you wouldn't think that it could ever happen. We've never used that sun cream before, that was the first time. God I would never ever again use it."

Lauren is now urging other parents to check UVA star ratings on products before using them on children. She said: "I would say just absolutely research the sun cream you’re using on your child beforehand.

"I have seen a few comments on my Facebook post saying we used this sun cream in Spain or in a different country and the same thing happened to us. Check the ratings. Ratings on sun creams go by stars and I think five star is the best and that one was only a three star.

"So had I known that I would never have bought that cream. You just think it's kids on the bottle, it says factor 50, that will be great. But it hasn't got a high rating and had I known that I would never have bought it."

Rhegan is still in pain, and Lauren says her daughter's face "only seems to be getting worse".

Lauren said: "She is still sore and her face actually only seems to be getting worse. The nurse said in the hospital that pretty much her whole face will just peel back to just raw skin. But she still is herself I suppose, but just a bit less so.

"I am worried about scarring. Obviously because it's her face and with her being a wee girl, I just hope that it doesn't leave her marked."

Lauren says she now fears taking her daughter out in the sun again. She said: "I'm worried about taking her outside in the sun again. We definitely won't this summer.

"She will have to stay in for two weeks but the rest of the summer she won't be out in the sun. It was just her birthday and she got loads of garden toys, a wee sand pit, but that will definitely not be used this year."

Malibu Sun said it has sent the company's complaints information pack to Lauren after her complaint and is waiting to hear back to investigate further.