Baby's First Bath: Skin Barrier Function Changes In Newborns" (70 Characters)

Research Credibility and Reliability

In this article, Lund et al. (2019) reflected on the final stage of skin maturation in terms of structures and functions. In their introduction, the authors argued that there are vital skin activities such as Keeping infection, preventing pathogens and allergens from penetrating the skin, and maintaining temperature management that depends on good skin barrier development. The evolution of the skin's barrier function, as represented by biophysical measures such as skin surface pH, transepidermal water loss, and stratum corneum hydration, varies dynamically during the newborn period. The researchers aimed to explore how the initial bath affected skin surface pH, TEWL, and SCH in comprehensive newborns. Interestingly, they formed their central hypothesis to create the baseline io n their exploration. Their central hypothesis is that there would be no change in skin pH when the first bath was given using either water alone or water mixed with a soap-free. Besides, liquid cleanser formulated for newborn skin, and TEWL and SCH would likewise show no difference. The influence of delivery method, vaginal birth, or cesarean section (C/S) is uncertain yet intriguing. This article's critique aims to subjectively analyze the authors' work to boost the reader's knowledge and share my view of a text.

Lund, Kuller, & Durand (2019) were the authors of "Baby's first bath: Changes in skin barrier function after bathing full?term newborns with water vs liquid baby cleanser" article. Besides, the article got published with one of the most credible websites, which majorly deals with the academic journals; Willy Online Library, pediatric dermatology. Therefore, the piece has high credibility and reliability for educational and general medical research. According to Mostert et al. (2015), medical research is currently data-intensive, with sensitive data being re-used, connected, and analyzed on a previously unheard-of scale. In the article, this author provides succinct abstract highlighting important topics from significant portions of the document and describes the paper's contents. Their effective abstract gives enough information to allow readers to quickly categorize the publication as relevant to their clinical practice or research knowledge. Their abstract has vital and precise information, such as research background, results, and conclusion. Moreover, their introduction provides the first impressions of arguments, logic, writing style, and overall quality of their research; it is comprehensive, precise, and informative. There is also a clear thesis statement in the introduction.

Lund et al. (2019) utilized the quantitative method to explore their thesis as this article explains the fundamental principles of quantitative research. Quantitative research is a variety of methodologies dealing with the scientific research of social phenomena via statistical or numerical data. As a result, quantitative research entails measurement and presupposes that the investigation phenomenon can get quantified (Watson, 2015). It intends to analyze data for patterns and correlations and validate the measurements, as evident in this article. Therefore, the researchers employed basic parametric and non-parametric statistics to examine variances, such as t-tests and chi-square tests. Besides, they analyzed demographic and descriptive features of the research population, including sex, gestational age, postnatal age, birthweight, and manner of delivery in a quantitative approach.

Quantitative Method and Data Analysis

The method used for data collection was the statistical method. Notably, to examine the change from pre-bath measurements, the primary and secondary hypotheses got assessed using linear regression models (Lund et al., 2019). In their analysis, the researchers modeled the variation in pH, SCH, and TEWL after a pre-bath as a function of treatment group, water alone vs. liquid baby cleanser, location (forearm versus sternum, and the interaction of treatment group and site. In addition to controlling for potential impacts owing to bath values, these models accounted for sex, gestational age, and delivery method. Finally, they presented their analysis on a table indicating pre-bath, demographic and baseline skin, barrier function assessment (mean + SD). Unfortunately, there was no clear distinction be water and cleanser among the neonates. Moreover, they also present skin PH, water loss, and dehydration on a bar graph.

In this analysis, I must reflect on the ethical issues concerning it. Research ethics is a practical formulation of scientific morals. The core standards and ideals of the research community are specified in research ethics guidelines. They are founded on general ethics of science, just as available ethics is based on societal morality. Surprisingly, depending on the ethics guideline we examine, we may receive different responses to queries about ethical difficulties in research. Even though there are multiple worldwide ethics standards for biomedical research involving human participants, no harmonized document informs us what these various guidelines say and shows us the areas of agreement (Bernabe et al., 2016). However, in this article, the researcher observed ethical guidelines by obtaining written consent from parents. Besides, parents were requested to consent before birth when the delivery was scheduled to be C/S. Nevertheless, research frequently requires considerable collaboration and coordination among individuals from many fields and organizations; ethical norms encourage qualities vital to accountability and mutual respect.

Sadly, this article has no clear data protection strategies and research funding. A data protection plan is a systematic attempt that combines all of the steps used in the research to secure data. The objective is to reduce sensitive data footprint while protecting business-critical and regulated data; this is not evident in the article. Data security is crucial for preserving sensitive data, respecting research subjects' privacy, and adhering to legal regulations and standards. Even data that seems to be de-identified can be re-identified if enough unique attributes are supplied. Furthermore, the knowledge disclosed throughout this procedure may be harmful in unforeseen ways (O'Toole et al., 2018). Therefore, the researchers would have tailored data-security measures to the risk of harm caused by a data breach and should consider any obligations imposed by the data source.

 Moreover, there is no stipulated research funding in this article. However, it is worth noting that the number of research efforts and the productivity of researchers in the area is influenced by research funding. A complete cost-benefit analysis would look at the effects of money on research and development—the marginal impact of a euro of research funding varies by discipline, field, researcher, research group, and institution. Because competitive financing necessitates peer evaluation, funding can be viewed as a qualitative indicator of research. Within the same funding metrics, quantitative statistics provide sources, variety, and combination measures such as funding volume per researcher and financing per publication. Therefore, the researchers need to capture direct research funding in their articles.

Ethical Issues in Research

The research backbone entails reliability, validity, bias, and sampling concepts that this article must analyze. The degree to which a research approach delivers steady and consistent outcomes is the research reliability. A measure is deemed dependable if it provides the same findings when applied several times to the same measurement item. Research validity is how its results correspond to the variable for which it was developed. Researchers can be more confident that the results are correct when a measure has good test-retest reliability and internal consistency. However, there must be more to it because an action might be reliable while also wholly invalid. As an absurd example, consider someone who believes that people's index finger length indicates their self-esteem and tries to judge self-esteem by holding a ruler up to people's index fingers. This metric would have good test-retest reliability but little predictive usefulness.

Besides, in my opinion, this research has little to no bias; however, Lund et al. (2019) failed to articulate this concept clearly in their study. Interestingly, the researcher did a recommendable sampling of the population under investigation. According to the authors, the research cohort included 100 healthy full-term newborn children, 50 delivered vaginally, and 50 through cesarean section (C/S) (Lund et al., 2019). Therefore, the researchers should be more concerned with the validity, liability, and bias of their research findings and discuss them in the article. Establishing reliability and validity in research guarantees that the data is sound and reproducible and that the results are correct. Validity and reliability evidence are required to ensure the integrity and quality of a measuring instrument.

The article has strengths, weaknesses, flaws, and limitations. In reflecting on the strength of this article, Lund et al. (2019) claimed that they presented TEWL data that are much greater than those reported in earlier investigations. It might be attributed to differences in measurement methodology since we utilized a closed chamber evaporimeter, whereas other studies used open chamber equipment. Furthermore, our measurements are among the earliest published, occurring as early as 30 minutes after delivery in some instances. They also credited previous researchers such as Rutter and Hull (1979). They described the increased TEWL levels in babies 34 to 41 weeks gestation in the first hours after delivery, which declined after 4 hours.

Besides, this study provides Multivariate statistics allowing the reader to capture a picture of a user group, but we run into problems when it comes to interpreting them. In quantitative research, statistical significance indicates whether the findings are valid, whereas effect size shows how they influence. The effect size is usually relatively large if researchers obtain statistical significance with smaller sample size. It is critical to consider the statistical significance and effect magnitude, as evident in this article when analyzing data. Moreover, the objectivity of quantitative data in this article is a significant strength. It is based on complex numbers and fewer variables: This can assist in removing biases from the research and improve the accuracy of the findings. Another strength is that big sample sizes are frequently simpler to get.

Data Protection Strategies

Moreover, one of the most significant strengths of quantitative research is that it allows one to reach well-considered conclusions since samples are taken from individuals directly affected by the study. The obtained data is mainly transformed to numerical form, which assists in statistical analysis. Furthermore, quantitative research is better appropriate for initiatives with scientific and social science components. The researchers would have utilized any of four research methods: descriptive research, correlational research, experimental research, or survey research. In descriptive writing, one strives to understand the 'what' of a thing rather than the 'why.' Interestingly, it attempts to characterize the many data components.

However, I have also identified the weakness in this article. Despite the many strengths attributed to its adopted quantitative method, the research approach created a set of flaws and limits: It is not suitable or convenient in all study instances. As a result, it adopts a quantitative research approach in a study where a qualitative research method would not yield the desired results. Typically, these study findings are restricted: This is because the systematic layout of the surveys is to blame for this delayed outcome. It is obvcious that the questionnaires typically include closed-ended questions, giving respondents little or no chance to explain their answers. As a result, the responses given are confined to the questions asked, and nothing such can reduce accuracy in the findings.

Furthermore, this quantitative study was done on a subset of a target group rather than the entire population. The findings of this study are then generalized to represent the views of the whole population: This implies that the opinions of a small number of respondents in that study are seen as representative of the wider public. Such ideas from them may be skewed or disingenuous, yet they represent the entire public. As a result, the mistake of premature generalization is more likely to occur in quantitative research. The generality of the ideas of a subset of the population may not be the ideal approach since their perspectives may be prejudiced.

Finally, quantitative research such as this is a reliable method of doing research, particularly in the natural and social sciences: Despite its strengths, the research approach has limits and shortcomings in this article which the researchers would have overcome. These limits and flaws frequently impact the quality of a quantitative research study. Besides, existing frameworks that are more often utilized were typically developed under the quantitative research paradigm. While frameworks for criticizing qualitative research exist, they are frequently sophisticated and better suited to the demands of advanced-level students. Therefore, I recommend utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods in clinical research. Even though they both have advantages and disadvantages, they may be incredibly productive when used in tandem. The researchers utilized qualitative research to uncover the elements influencing the child's initial bath. Afterwhich, they would have used that information to design quantitative analysis that evaluates how these factors influence newborn health. The collecting of resources for academic or other objectives is what research includes. It is acquiring knowledge and data to remedy or avoid future issues. Generally, the article is well researched, and I would recommend other researchers and readers to consider utilizing it.

References

Bernabe, R.D., van Thiel, G.J. & van Delden, J.J., 2016. What do international ethics guidelines say in terms of the scope of Medical Research Ethics? BMC Medical Ethics, 17(1).

Lund, C., Kuller, J. & Durand, D.J., 2019. Baby's first bath: Changes in skin barrier function after bathing full?term newborns with water vs Liquid Baby Cleanser. Pediatric Dermatology, 37(1), pp.115–119.

Mostert, M. et al., 2015. Big Data in medical research and EU Data Protection Law: Challenges to the consent or ANONYMISE approach. European Journal of Human Genetics, 24(7), pp.956–960.

O'Toole, E. et al., 2018. DATA SECURITY PROCEDURES FOR RESEARCHERS. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Available at: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/person/ola-busari [Accessed January 18, 2022].

Rutter, N. & Hull, D., 1979. Water loss from the skin of term and preterm babies. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 54(11), pp.858–868.

Watson, R., 2015. Quantitative research. Nursing Standard, 29(31), pp.44–48.