Prevention and control of neonatal pyoderma with chlorhexidine.

The extent of staphylococcal colonisation and neonatal pyoderma was studied in 5 220 infants in two large Swedish hospitals in 1979-1982. A method for routine cord care with 4% chlorhexidine detergent solution was evaluated in one hospital. Nursery colonisation with Staph. aureus and streptococci decreased significantly. The method proved to be clinically efficient for prevention of pyoderma in the nursery as well as for controlling staphylococcal infection after discharge from hospital. The combined use of a quantitative sampling method and phage-typing showed that most post-discharge lesions were nursery-derived. In one of the hospitals, daily cord care with 70% ethanol failed to prevent streptococcal and staphylococcal omphalitis in the nursery whereas daily cord care with chlorhexidine reduced the incidence of omphalitis from 21 to 1%.