A recent study by Chaoimh and team has found that early initiation of regular emollient use for 2 months lowers the incidence of Atopic Dermatitis (AD) in high-risk infants. The findings were published in the Journal of Allergy.
Protecting the skin barrier and defense in early infancy may prevent AD. Thus, this single-center, randomized controlled clinical trial was undertaken. Full Term infants who were identified as high risk for AD (parental history of Atopic dermatitis, asthma or allergic rhinitis) were recruited for the study within 4 days of birth. They were further randomized to either emollient application BD for the first 8 weeks of life (intervention group), with an emollient specifically formulated for highly dry skin, or to standard routine skin care (control group).

Key highlights of this Clinical trial:
A total of 321 (161 intervention and 160 control) were included.
The overall incidence of AD at 12 months in the intervention group was 32.8% while the control group had 46.4%.
One withdrawal from the intervention group was due to a rash development which had potential relationship with the emollient.
During the intervention period, there was no significant difference in the incidence of skin infections in both the groups.
While the results of this study showed that early initiation of daily use emollient use for 2 months reduces the incidence of Atopic Dermatitis in high-risk infants, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not clear. "The analysis of microbiome diversity and the inflammatory biomarkers in this study is ongoing and this may provide further information," concluded the Authors.
Source:
Chaoimh, C. N., Lad, D., Nico, C., Puppels, G. J., Wong, X. F. C. C., Common, J. E., Murray, D. M., Irvine, A. D., & Hourihane, J. O. (2022). Early initiation of short‐term emollient use for the prevention of atopic dermatitis in high‐risk infants—The STOP‐AD randomised controlled trial. In Allergy. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/all.15491