Skin-to-skin contact between mothers and full-term infants

Abstract

In skin-to-skin contact, the baby is laid on the parent's bare chest wearing only a nappy. Skin-to-skin contact between the parent and a premature baby leads to a wide range of positive outcomes. These positive outcomes are also observed in full-term babies when skin-to-skin contact is applied immediately after delivery. In this PhD thesis, we extended the period of skin-to-skin contact. We tested the effectiveness of a daily hour of skin-to-skin contact between mothers and full-term babies for the first five weeks after birth.

The results were extremely promising. Evidence was found that regular skin-to-skin contact reduced anxiety and maternal fatigue, prolonged the breastfeeding period, reduced babies’ crying time, and prolonged babies’ sleeping time. No effects were found with respect to depression, stress, and pain symptoms in the mother.

Daily skin-to-skin contact is therefore potentially a cost-free and effective intervention for mothers and their full-term babies. Since we also found that a daily hour of skin-to-skin contact is not feasible for everyone, follow-up research is needed to confirm the current results and explore how to make this intervention more accessible to all mothers.