The Effect of Bathing on Clinical outcomes of Preterm Infants: Randomized Control Clinical Trial Study

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Bathing of a premature newborn is important in care giving, but due to inadequate evidences, infant caregivers are not sure about bathing being safe in terms of not causing hypothermia and are not systematically considered in the infants’ care giving programs. Aim: To determine the effect of tub bathing on body temperature of preterm infants”. Methods: This study is a randomized controlled clinical trial. 132 preterm infant with a gestational age 32-37 weeks were randomly divifded into two treatment and control groups. The infants of tretment group were bathed three times in the interval of one day inside the bathtub while the control group received routine skin care. In the treatment group, the physiologic parameters measured ten minutes before and after bathing and in concontrol group these parameters were also measured at the same times and with the same time intervals. The weight outcome laso measured daily. These data were registered in the cheklist. The data were analayzed using SPSS software and descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Less than 0.05 P value was considered statistically significant. Results: The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between both groups in terms of the changes of temperature, oxygen saturation, heart rate and weights in premature infants(p>0.05). Conclusion: the results of this study showed that bathing in a bathtub does not cause to improper physiologic parameters changes in the preterm infants. Also, despite the lack of statistical significance, according to the results of the study, an increase of weight gain preterm infants after bathing in all three measurement times was observed comparing to the control group. So it is resommended to use bathing of newborns, especially tub bathing, in the care giving program of the infants hospitalized in newborns wards and NICUs.