Pregnancy can cause several skin changes, but little evidence exists on the structural and functional skin changes. Children in their first year undergo rapid skin maturation, but evidence shows their water-holding and transport mechanisms to be different from adults. 

Whether maternal cutaneous properties predict infant skin condition is not known. This is especially relevant for the skin’s microbiome since it closely interacts with the host and plays a key role in many skin diseases. 

Thus an observational longitudinal design study is exploring the characteristics of skin and hair of pregnant women and their newborns during pregnancy and in the first six months after delivery and their associations. 

Pregnant females between 18 to 45 years of age are being enrolled for the study. Noninvasive, standardized skin, hair, and skin microbiome measurements are being performed in the enrolled subjects. 

The baseline visit remains during pregnancy until at the latest four weeks before delivery and follow-up visits are scheduled four weeks and six months after birth for mothers and their newborns. 

Descriptive statistical methods using frequencies and associations over time will be calculated. 

This study will illustrate a broad range of individual and environmental characteristics of mothers and their newborns to estimate interrelationships with skin parameters and their changes over time, which will permit a more in-depth understanding of the complex interrelationship of the newborn’s skin maturation. 

Source- Dermatology Research and Practice, 2021; 2021. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4163705