Discussion
anxious mood, impaired infantile, anxiety, allergic manifestation, depression, depressive, infantile eczema, MPIM on infantile eczema, eczema
INFANTILE ECZEMA, REMISSION, ECZEMA, INFANTILE ECZEMA
This study aimed to observe the potentially positive effect of MPIM on infantile eczema, growth and the mental state in mothers. This study indicated that infantile eczema impaired infantile quality of life and negatively influenced maternal mental state. Infantile eczema improved over time after mothers followed the instructions about the routine care for infantile eczema, along with improved depressive and anxious mood in mothers. More importantly, this study demonstrated that MPIM further enhanced eczema remission and decreased its relapse rate, together with further improved mental state in mothers. However, the growth in infants with eczema was not affected by MPIM.Eczema is typically the first allergic manifestation to appear (As we all know, postpartum mothers are susceptible to depression and anxiety episodes (Two previous trials demonstrated that mother-performed massage could relieve eczema symptoms in young children (Further investigation in this study revealed the positive correlation between the levels of depression and anxiety and the severity of infant eczema. Therefore, on one side, the sleep state of infants got better with eczema improvement, which might beneficially influence the mothers sleep and mood. On the other hand, skin-to-skin contact during MPIM might trigger oxytocin (OT) production and release, which contributed to anti-stress effect and improving sleep state in mothers as previous reports (Few trials investigated the outcomes of both infants and mothers following MPIM. To our knowledge, only one trial did investigate the physical status of preterm infants and the psychological state in the mothers following MPIM, which led to greater weight, motor development, and larger bicep and thigh circumference in infants as well as increased maternal attachment and decreased anxiety compared to the control group (In addition, the correlations of EASI score with infantile scores of IDQOL and sleep and maternal scores of SAS and SDS were more significant after 2-month intervention compared with those at baseline. This result suggests that infantile quality of life and sleep and maternal mood might be affected easily by surrounding complicated factors during early postpartum stage, which may change overtime.Previous study showed that parents preferred to learn and practice infant massage on their own babies either in a class, in a hospital or at home under the investigators' supervision and instruction (