‘Dry Washing’ Of Babies Cuts H-Bug Infection
(A'.Z. Press Association—Copyright)
MELBOURNE, August 17.
Doctors at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne believe that a new “dry-washing” process used on new-born babies will prevent them from contracting staphylococcal infection. The process consists of bathing the babies in an antiseptic with a detergent base. In the last six months at the hospital, 4300 babies have been treated with the new process and only two were allergic to the treatment. Since the introduction of the preventive the proportion of babies who contracted the infection has dropped from 20 per cent, to 1.2 per cent. The dry wash is described as a “hexochlorophene emulsion.” The infection is spread by hand, baby clothing, by nurses handling the babies, and, as recent experiments have shown, by air movements.
It caused boils, infected surgical and accident wounds and could cause staphylococcal pneumonia.
The dry-wash discovery was made by three doctors who formed an infection control committee at the Royal Women’s Hospital. as the result of an increase in the number of babies affected. Experiments were made between January and June. Cases were segregated; and as the disease could not be spread from mother to baby a “rooming-in” plan was adopted in which only the mother handled her own baby.
In spite of these measures, the number of cases remained at a serious level.
The number of babies “dry-
washed” was gradually increased until by June all babies were treated this way. The disease has by now almost disappeared.
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Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28976, 18 August 1959, Page 6
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251‘Dry Washing’ Of Babies Cuts H-Bug Infection Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28976, 18 August 1959, Page 6
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