APPLYING moisturiser to babies daily, regardless of whether they have dry skin, could reduce their chances of developing atopic dermatitis (AD), or eczema, according to US research.
The team from Oregon Health & Science University recruited just over 1,200 infants and their parents and split them into two groups.
In the first group, parents were asked to moisturise their baby's body daily from nine weeks old to 24 months, while in the second, they were asked to avoid using moisturiser unless their baby developed dry skin that really needed it.
At 24 months of age, around 36% of the moisturiser group had reports of eczema, compared to 43% of the non-moisturiser group.
The protective effect was more pronounced among children not at high risk of AD, and also in families with a dog.
The researchers speculated that this may be due to different drivers of AD, with immune dysregulation and genetic causes less able to be overcome than environmental factors and skin barrier insults.
The findings suggest that using this safe, inexpensive pharmacy staple on babies could potentially reduce the rates of a condition that can cause a range of problems for children as they grow up.
"Implementing this approach to paediatric skin care may be a feasible way to reduce the burden of AD in US communities," they concluded.
Read the paper HERE.
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