The Hunt for Pregnancy-Safe Sunscreen, Chapter 2

The sun has arrived!

A new season in New Zealand always makes me feel like I’m in a new country. Once the rainy, blustery winter is (hopefully!) gone, the crisp blue skies of early spring make the land feel brand new.

And it doesn’t take long to get reacquainted with the gloriously sharp New Zealand sun.

As the days have grown longer, I've hit the stores again.

I don’t remember hunting for sunscreen last spring. I’d finished breastfeeding bub #1, so I probably just grabbed whatever was there at the store. Banana Boat, Nivea, one of those. For my boy I had a lovely zinc and beeswax sunscreen made by a friend, but for myself I wouldn’t have thought twice.

This year I’m pregnant with bub #2 – and suddenly the lack of safe sunscreen is glaring! There’s more shelf space dedicated to a single brand of face care than to the products we all need to keep us safe in the sun!

And to my surprise, no major retailer in Auckland is selling mineral sunscreen – not Countdown, New World or Pak’nSave. They only sell chemical ones, and those aren’t what I want for myself or my growing bub. What’s up with that?

I finally found them at the pharmacies. Was I meant to know to look there first? It took me a while but finally, I found some options!