Please select the eligibility criteria that correspond to the clinical trial below.
Title: Effect of Topical Oil Application on Trans-Epidermal Water Loss in Preterm Infants - A Randomized Clinical Trail
Brief Summary: The skin of newborn infants is immature and ineffective as a barrier. Preterm skin exhibits even more vulnerability to the environment due to poor self regulatory heat mechanisms, paucity of fatty tissue and its thinness. Most preterm babies lose up to 13% of their weight as water loss from their skin during the first week of life. Many strategies have been utilized by neonatologists to decrease this water loss. Edible coconut oil application on the skin acts as a non permeable barrier and can help in achieving this. Hence the investigators decided to undertake this study to objectively assess the reduction in water loss from skin after oil application.


Options:
A: Inclusion Criteria:

All preterm babies born at the study center with birth weight \< 1500g were eligible for inclusion in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Babies with birth weight less than 750 gms at birth
2. Babies with major congenital malformations.
3. Babies with severe asphyxia, hydrops and shock.
4. Babies with congenital diseases of skin associated with skin breach or denudation of skin precluding oil application
5. Babies with preexisting skin infection such as multiple furuncles (2 or more skin areas - each limb, head, chest, abdomen and back are the individual areas that will be taken as one area)
B: Inclusion Criteria:

Infants will be eligible for this study if their mother, father, or an older sibling has a self-reported history of at least one of the following conditions:

* asthma,
* eczema/atopic dermatitis,
* hay fever/ allergic rhinitis or
* food allergy

Exclusion Criteria: infants with any of the following will be excluded:

* A parent who has a known hypersensitivity to any of the ingredients of EpiCeram™ will be excluded, as it would be difficult for these parents to apply EpiCeram™ to their infant, and there is likely to be an increased risk of the infant reacting to the cream.
* Multiple births (twins, triplets etc.) will be excluded, due to the difficulty in randomising individual twins and because of the clustering effect of multiple children from the same family which would reduce the effective sample size of the study.
* Who are born premature (\<36 weeks) as the effect of the intervention may be different in premature infants.
* Who have major birth or early life medical complications that require admission into a special care nursery, as it will be difficult for parents to comply with the study requirements.
* Whose parents do not have sufficient English language skills to be able to answer questions.
* Whose parents are not able to comply with all protocol required visits and procedures
C: The study enrolls Mother-child pairs in two steps; first mother, thereafter her new-born baby.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Ante-natal inclusion, step 1: All mothers to-be at 18 weeks ultrasound investigation with sufficient language skills (Norwegian or Swedish), gestational age: at least 16-22 weeks.

1. Exclusion: Plans to move further than reasonable travel distance from any of the participating hospitals within the first year of the offspring's life.

1. Inclusion of the child, step 2: Live-born babies of gestational age 35.0 weeks or more (including multiple pregnancies), maternal/parental willingness to participate in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

Exclusion criteria child: 1) severe neonatal cardiac, pulmonary, neurologic, dermatologic disease or other disease that may influence the outcomes 2), plans to move further than reasonable travel distance away from any of the participating hospitals within the first nine months of life.

3) Non-willingness to participate, 4) More than two foetuses
D: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Any preterm neonates (\>26 weeks and \< 37 weeks of gestation by maternal dates)
2. Birth weight of at least 750 gm
3. Age ≤72 hours of life
4. Baseline blood cultures obtained
5. Expected survival \> 48 hours (based on the clinical judgment by the physicians)

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Neonate with severe RDS on admission as declared by the consulting Physician on the basis of radiologic findings.
2. Neonate within first 24 hours of critical care
3. Life threatening congenital anomalies
4. Congenital skin anomalies
5. Hydrops Fetalis
6. Congenital infection of the skin
7. History of any previous treatment with the ointment
8. Newborns admitted for major surgical procedure with expected high rates of infectious complications.
9. Newborns with positive baseline blood cultures

Answer: A