What are Mrs. Beck's Button Beauties?

(For the next few days, my posts are going to be about Mrs. Beck's Button Beauties.  This information may or may not apply to you, but I am trying to streamline my business, so if you've purchased from me in the past, you'll be happy to know, I'm making it a little easier!  If you don't know anything about button beauties, feel free to stick around and ask questions as you continue to read!!)


*** If you're interested in ordering some button beauties, you can visit this link for more information on ordering!

Button Beauties are meant to protect the skin between a G-button and your child's tender belly skin.  They are made from 3 layers of fabric.  The layer that touches the skin is a soft fleece designed to wick away any moisture from the skin.  This moisture might be from a leaking stoma, a leaking tube/button, or just sweat.  The fabric I use is the same fabric used inside a cloth diaper, it is not the same kind of fleece you can buy at the fabric store, I have to special order it.  The middle layer is the least complicated.  It's regular flannel, which is meant to absorb and hold in any moisture after it wicks through the bottom layer.  The top layer is the one you care about, it's the pretty one.  This may be flannel or just a plain cotton weave, but you can count on the fact that it'll be cute!!

The enclosure is a small piece of soft velcro and fastens just secure enough to keep the button beauty secure around your child's button, but not so tight that it is hard to unfasten (because I know that button can be a little sensitive sometimes!).

Button beauties are meant to be washed and dried and are much more durable than a piece of gauze or cotton.  Sadie still uses the ones she wore in the hospital after her surgery in August 2011 almost a year later!  The only thing you'll have to be careful of is that if you have an HE front-loading washing machine, you'll probably want to wash your button beauties in a mesh bag to keep them from ending up in the catch.  If that happens, they probably won't be clean, and chances are they'll curl and wear out faster.  If you have a top-loading machine, you can just throw them in with everything else...but it wouldn't hurt to put them in a mesh bag in your top-loader either!!

Sadie has used my button beauties since the day she came home from the hospital after her G-button surgery.  I won't tell you she didn't get granulation tissue, because she did.  And it was really bad.  But we were persistent about Sadie wearing them when her stoma was bloody or crusty or swollen, and eventually the granulation tissue healed and her stoma is beautiful now!!  We still keep the button beauties on there to protect her, as well as to stabilize her G-button a little and keep it from pulling her skin.

***Please note, the button beauties did NOT heal the granulation tissue, we did visit the doctor, who used silver nitrate to burn off the extra skin.  This was not a pleasant experience, and in the end, probably made the problem worse.  Eventually, we got to the point where we were told to just leave it alone and if it grows back, don't mess with it.  If your child has granulation tissue growing, please visit your doctor to advise you as to the proper treatment as all children are different.

If you'd like to try using Mrs. Beck's Button Beauties, stay tuned for a post tomorrow about prices, ordering, and choosing fabric.  I will also add a post for FAQs soon, but don't hesitate to email or ask your question below as it might not appear on the FAQ list.   And if you're curious to see what someone else thinks about my button beauties you can visit  Feeding Raya for a product review.