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For children who are critically ill, daily bath with an ordinary antiseptic can reduce the chances of getting bloodstream infections, according to the latest trial conducted by investigators.

The trial was led by Aaron Milstone, M.D., M.H.S., and a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. It was carried out in five pediatric hospitals and the details of the research were published in the Lancet.

This research was unique in children and collected data from over 4,000 children who are admitted in the ICUs of pediatric units in five hospitals across the U.S.  Apart from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, the other 4 hospitals where the research was conducted were St. Louis Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Seattle Children's Hospital and Children's National Medical Center.

A comparison was made between baths using the regular soaps and those using diluted chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG), which is frequently used in antiseptic agents to eliminate viruses, bacteria and fungi.

It was observed that critically ill children who had been bathed with antiseptic water had 36 percent less chances of getting dangerous bloodstream infections than those who were bathed in normal soap water. The process of giving a bath at the bedside is not given scientific importance, however, this research proves otherwise.

The risk of bloodstream infection is a common hazard among children who are critically ill, and causes unnecessary complications like organ damage, and, in some cases, it may turn out to be fatal. This process of giving the children antibacterial baths had been introduced in 2011 at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center to combat infections. 

"Daily bedside baths with an antiseptic solution may be an easy, quick and relatively cheap way to cut the risk of a potentially life-threatening infection in these vulnerable children," Dr. Milstone was quoted as saying in Medicalxpress.

All the recent endeavors to control bloodstream infections have focused on controlling the ones which are caused by central venous catheters. However, since children suffer from other bloodstream-related infections as well, the antiseptic bath will prove to be more effective in the long run.

"Bloodstream infections, catheter-related or not, occur in many critically ill children and cause a lot of morbidity, so our efforts should be on reducing bacteremia of any and all origins," Trish M. Perl, M.D., M.Sc., an infectious disease expert and lead epidemiologist of the Johns Hopkins Health System, was also quoted as saying.