At Root Down, we believe that the appropriate time to pierce a child's lobes is around the age of seven..
Young girls and older ladies who come to us for another piercing often have the same problem - each ear is pierced differently, sometimes too high, sometimes too low, far from the face or too close. The reason for this is always similar - the piercing was done at a very young age, by a not very qualified person, done by piercing gun or a combination of all. Such ears must either be re-pierced or, if the new piercing is too close to the old one and may heal badly, another piercing must be done in a different place than it could have been and look much better.
The ear is growing
No baby is born with adult ears. Just like other parts of the body, the ears are very small and logically the lobes themselves are really tiny, continuing to grow with age, throughout life. The center of the lobe, where the earring has its proper place, migrates very often with age. Sometimes by tenths of a millimetre, sometimes by whole millimetres. Piercing such small lobes is therefore a pure gamble with the shape of the piercing in the future.
Everyone has a different ear shape
Just as we each have our own fingerprint, we also have different ears. The variations of ear shape are truly countless. The lobes themselves can be smaller, larger, protruding or adjacent, close to the face or even so small that they are not visually visible at all. At the age of about 7 years, the earlobe is already developed so that a professional piercer with years of experience can estimate how the ear will develop and decide where exactly to place the piercing.
"The others can't recognize my daughter from the boys!"
We won't get into the gender debate here, but we think that if a parent has the desire or need to represent the female gender on their child, girly clothes and colours are far preferable to the risk of their daughter having her ears badly pierced forever.
"But Grandma and Grandpa gave us earrings for the little one."
A gift for a newborn baby girl in the form of earrings is very common from grandparents. However, it has its own pitfalls, namely that such earrings tend to be completely inappropriate for a fresh piercing. The clasp of the jewellery itself often allows dirt to adhere, which forms from the healing piercing and the subsequent multiplication of bacteria causes infection.
For any new piercing in any place and to anyone, the use of a quality jewelry in terms of both material and shape is always required. In professional studios, only certified titanium jewelry is used, which avoids the possibility of an allergic reaction. At Root Down for kids we use either classic titanium Ball Closure Rings (rings with a clasp in the form of a snapped ball or bead), Segment Rings (clear rings where the ball is replaced by a segment) or Labret Studs ( studs with a small ball in the front and a small disc in the back). It takes about four weeks for a lobe piercing to heal and after healing, almost anything can be worn, although we urge our customers to avoid poor quality materials, jewellery or jewellery with sharp shapes.
In any quality professional studio, a piercer will not use a piercing gun, as it is an unhygienic and completely inappropriate method, where the skin is not pierced, but pierced with a blunt jewel, which clamps the puncture site and makes subsequent cleaning impossible. The jewellery clasp again has room for dirt to stick or is unnecessarily large and creates a blister. The back side where the jewellery is sharp tends to be uncovered and can irritate the skin behind the ear. All this is completely unnecessary.
At Root Down, we use only Braun disposable sterile needles for all piercings, which minimizes trauma and allows us to use jewelry appropriate for the piercing. Proper jewelry allows for proper cleaning, which is crucial for a piercing to heal quickly.
"Babies don't remember the pain anyway, but my seven-year-old daughter is terrified of getting pierced!"
Who among us knows what goes on in the mind of a baby whose head is being held by a nurse to keep it from wiggling while a doctor or anyone else approaches with a needle or, worse, a piercing gun. But isn't that completely unnecessary trauma?
In measuring the lobe piercing so that the result is symmetrical and 100 percent, it is necessary that the child sit still and steady. This is the only way to measure the piercing both from the front to the middle of the lobe and, thanks to the measuring rings, also from behind. The piercing is therefore guided precisely and asymmetry is avoided.
Piercer Punky dodává: "I admit that I didn't really get into bodypiercing to do it for little kids. But when, after years of work, I found what unnecessary mistakes were being made around me, I decided that I would at least in some small way help to prevent so many women in the future from having their ears pierced the wrong way, and agreed to perform piercing on children's lobes with condition that they were of sufficient age. With my appearance I sometimes inspire fear in some children, but also respect. The children listen to me, sit nice and straight and do not wriggle. Of the dozens of children whose lobes I pierced, some of them cried and some, but a really small percentage of children were so hysterical that we agreed with their parents on another date. But the vast majority of the children managed their first piercing perfectly and left the chair happy and proud of themselves."
"My parents had my ears pierced as a baby, but I don't wear earrings because I don't like it and I have scars from my old earrings."
Of course, every parent has the right to make decisions about their child in their own way and according to their own best knowledge and conscience. But ear piercing is, after all, about something different than, for example, hairstyle or clothes. Customers who bring their children to us when they are school-age come to us with a similar sentence: "My daughter has already decided that she would like to have earrings." Isn't that more correct?
We therefore consider the piercing of the lobes of babies to be an unnecessary relic that we would like to see disappear one day.
"My daughter is old enough and would like her first earrings, what would you recommend?"
Discuss the procedure with your daughter so that she is prepared for it, and especially so that she knows that if she can sit still and talk with you for a little while, she will have her first earrings done very quickly. Complete calm is required for a properly performed procedure, which is why at Root Down we do not normally allow an escort in the piercing room. However, with young children we understand the need for an accompaniment, so you can promise your daughter, among other things, that you will be with her throughout the procedure. The piercing itself is preceded by a painless disinfection of the skin and following measuring, which together takes a few minutes. The piercing and the application of the jewellery is then a matter of seconds, the pain is not particularly strong and the little customer can happily jump off the chair to you after a short while. We recommend choosing a reservation between the morning and early afternoon. That is, when the child is not tired and cranky. However, we do not recommend forcing the child to do anything. If she changes her mind at the last minute and decides that she does not want to have the piercing for whatever reason, we can discuss everything together and try to convince her, but it is certainly not advisable to force her into the procedure under pressure. If you don't get the piercing done on the date you want, at least we here at Root Down won't be angry at all.
English 
Czech 