Evidence Based Practices for Umbilical Cord Care in Newborns: Review

Umbilical cord care has an important place to protect newborns umbilical cord infections which has an important place among neonatal infections. In the present study, practices in newborn umbilical cord care and information about comparisons of those practices’ efficiency were presented by scientific evidences. Search was done on “Pubmed, Cohrane Library and Science Direct databases with the following keywords; “Neonatal”, “Newborn” or “Infant” and “Umbilical Cord Care”. Community or hospital based, experimental or quasi-experimental, randomised controlled, double blind randomised controlled and cluster randomised controlled researches conducted between the years of 2008-2013 were reviewed, being totally 21 studies included. Information about the most applied umbilical cord care practices of last five years (Alcohol,Povidone Iodine, Chlorhexidine, Triple Dye, Eosin, Topical Antibacterial Agents, Salicylic Sugar Powder, Olive oil, Breastmilk and Naturally Drying) which were derived from those studies, was presented.Dry cord care is recommended for newborns born in developed countries and Chlorhexidine application to the umbilical cord stump is recommended for newborns who are born at the least developed countries in accordance with Evidence-based research and guidelines, Nurses can make studies in this area to improve the quality of care and to contribute to the scientific accumulation of nursing.