Breast Milk for Treatment of Adhesive Related Skin Injury in Neonates: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

Abstract Breast milk is an extremely complex, dynamic and highly variable biofluid. The healing effect of human breast milk has led researchers to increase interest in human breast milk as a natural medicine. Adhesive-related skin injury (ARSI) has a significant negative impact on patient safety. Aim to assess the efficacy of breast milk in treatment of ARSI. Subject and Method This study is a randomized controlled trial that conducted on neonates admitted to neonatal intensive care units of Ain Shams university Hospitals and El-Galaa Teaching Hospital. Results The study included 39 lesions of ARSI from 29 neonates (12 males and 17 females), they divided to breast milk group that enrolled 14 neonates with 20 lesions and routine care group that enrolled 15 neonates with 19 lesions, their gestational age ranged between 36 and 40 weeks and their age were from 5 to 28 days old. When we compared the skin sore score of ARSI before and after treatment between breast milk group and control group it showed that before treatment the breast milk group included 18 lesions with score 2 and 2 lesions with score 1 and the control group included 18 lesions with score 2 and 1 lesion with score 3 and there were no statistical significant difference between both groups with P-value 0.226. Also after treatment the breast milk group included 18 lesions with score 0, 1 lesion with score 1 and 1 lesion with score 2 and the control group included 14 lesions with score 0, 3 lesions with score 1 and 2 lesions with score 2 and there were no statistically significant difference between bothgroups with P-value 0.405. In breast milk group, when compared the skin sore score after treatment with before treatment, we found the skin sore score before treatment included 18 lesions with score 2 and 2 lesions with score 1 which improved significant statistically to 18 lesions with score 0, 1 lesion with score 1 and 1 lesion with score 2 With p value 0.000. this reduction was comparable to the reduction of skin sore score in the control group with no statistical significant difference between both groups as the median number regarding breast milk group was 2 (2 – 2) and the median number regarding routine care group was 2 (1 – 2) and the P-value in comparison between both groups were 0.660. Conclusion breast milk was as effective as routine care in treatment of ARSI and showed non inferiority in treatment of ARSI.