Parental application of nasal antibiotic ointment and use of antiseptic wipes may significantly reduce parent-to-infant transmission of Staphylococcus aureus in the NICU, according to study results published in JAMA.

“Parents are an important reservoir from which neonates can acquire S. aureus,” Aaron M. Milstone, MD, MHS, professor of pediatric infectious diseases and epidemiology and associate hospital epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told Healio. “Although some questions remain before the studied intervention can be widely applied, this study should raise awareness. Parents should be encouraged to wash their hands, just as health care workers do, before touching their child in the neonatal intensive care unit setting where neonates are at high risk of infection.”