This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Pediatrics  • Neonatology and Infant Care  • Alert me on articles by topic

Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2005;293:1848.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Massaging low-birth-weight infants with sunflower seed oil is a simple and low-cost way to protect them against infection, according to a new study published online on March 3 in the Lancet (http://www.thelancet.com).

Preterm infants are at high risk of life-threatening infection, in part because their skin lacks a protective biofilm called vernix. To assess whether massaging an infant’s skin with sunflower seed oil could provide an infection-reducing barrier, researchers from the United States and Bangladesh randomly assigned 497 premature infants to receive massage with the oil, massage with an ointment called Aquaphor (containing petrolatum, mineral oil, mineral wax, and lanolin), or no intervention.

Massages with sunflower seed oil can help ward off infections in premature infants. (Photo credit: Bruce Fritz/ARS/USDA)

Newborns treated with sunflower seed oil or Aquaphor had about 7 infections per 100 days in the hospital vs nearly 11 infections per 100 days . . . [Full Text of this Article]