Infant bathing frequency feasibility trial
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A randomised controlled feasibility trial to determine whether families are willing to change baby bathing practice during the first months of life
IRAS ID
311086
Contact name
Michael Perkin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St George's, University of London
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN51491794
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 5 months, 29 days
Research summary
Eczema is a dry, itchy skin condition affecting 15% of infants and young children, with a disproportionately high burden on children from ethnic minorities. The increase in eczema during the twentieth century means environmental factors must be important. Currently one in three babies is bathed at least once daily which is much more often than people used to bathe babies before they had ready access to hot water. Water and soaps can both damage baby skin and recent research findings suggest that reducing bathing frequency might be an effective way to prevent babies developing eczema.
In this project, we will find out how families feel about taking part in a trial that aims to reduce bathing frequency. Through interviews and focus groups with diverse groups of expectant mothers and their families, we will seek to identify which practices families might be willing to change, and any potential barriers to changing baby skincare practices. We will then design an intervention to reduce bathing frequency and test whether it is possible to do a clinical trial to find out whether the intervention prevents eczema.
In this second phase of the project, we will recruit 125 pregnant women to be randomly assigned to either the new baby skincare intervention or to routine NHS advice. This study will aim to establish whether a trial testing the new way of advising families to reduce potentially harmful baby skincare practices is feasible. We will interview some of the participants in this study to learn about how they found the process of trial participation and their experiences of trying to reduce potentially harmful baby skincare practices. This will help us determine whether it will be possible to subsequently undertake a large randomised trial to investigate the effect of advice to reduce harmful skincare practices on eczema development.REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
22/NS/0120
Date of REC Opinion
28 Aug 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion