Mrs Sarah Fleming

Research has demonstrated the positive effects self-rostering can have on employees’ work-life balance by allowing staff to select shifts that fit in with personal commitments. The midwifery team at Oxford Brookes University introduced self-rostering for placement shifts in an attempt to support students and practice colleagues, and enable students to continue practising during the pandemic. The roll-out of the initiative has been successful despite initial challenges. A ward manager appreciated the resulting reduction in her workload and observed students’ increased placement satisfaction. Two students described how they have benefitted from the autonomy and improved work-life balance that self-rostering provides.

Globally, 5-30% of children have eczema; this could be partly attributable to skin cleansing routines. Evidence-based international guidance on this topic is lacking and dated national UK guidelines may not reflect best practice. We conducted a mixed method, UK-wide (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) cross-sectional survey to investigate parental cleansing of their newborn’s skin; 973 responses were suitable for inclusion. 60% of participants delayed first cleansing after birth for 48 hours and 79.4% of participants cleansed their newborn’s nappy area with each change.  Participants from Scotland were more likely to cleanse their newborn within the first 48 hours (X22 = 29.3, p

Aims: To systematically review literature investigating parents’ and carers’ newborn skin cleansing practices in order to describe these practices and their underlying rationales.

Design: A systematic literature review

Data sources: CINAHL, Medline, BND and PubMed databases were searched in February 2020. Primary research articles written in English and relevant to the topic were included regardless of country of publication.

Review Methods: Primary research papers published between 2009 and 2020 were reviewed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Relevant results from retrieved studies were extracted and tabulated. Qualitative data were analysed using the first two steps of Thomas and Harden’s (2008) method of thematic analysis.A basic meta-integration process similar to that proposed by Frantzen and Fetters (2015) was performed and the limited quantitative findings were reported within the relevant qualitative theme.

Results: Seven studies were included and the following themes generated: bathing after birth, frequency of cleansing, substances used for bathing/cleansing, vernix removal and beliefs and culture. A wide range of newborn skin cleansing practices exist across the countries and cultures studied, and the rationales for these practices are deeply rooted in common belief systems and culture of the study area.

Conclusion: Cultural influences appear to drive parental practice, and many parents are unwilling to break away from these. In addition to further research into safe and effective newborn skin cleansing methods, there is a call for new, large scale, research which addresses gaps in current knowledge about the skin cleansing practices of different groups of parents with newborn babies. This research would also seek to determine how these practices might be influenced if they are shown not to be optimal, and guide planning effective dissemination of evidence-based information.