• Midwifery · Mar 2005

    Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial

    A randomised controlled trial in the north of England examining the effects of skin-to-skin care on breast feeding.

    • Sue Carfoot, Paula Williamson, and Rumona Dickson.
    • Women's Health Directorate, North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Warrington, UK. suecarfoot@blueyonder.co.uk
    • Midwifery. 2005 Mar 1; 21 (1): 71-9.

    Objectiveto examine the effect of early skin-to-skin contact between mothers and their healthy full-term babies on initiation and duration of breast feeding.Designa randomised controlled trial comparing skin-to-skin with routine care.SettingWarrington Hospital, Cheshire, UK.Participants204 mother and baby pairs; 102 randomised to each group.Outcome Measuressuccess of first breast feed, maternal satisfaction with skin-to-skin care and preference for future post-delivery care, baby-body temperature 1 hr after birth, partial or exclusive breast feeding at 4 months.Findingsin the skin-to-skin group, 89 out of 98 (91%) babies had a successful first feed compared with 82 out of 89 (83%) in the routine care group. The difference in the success rate was 8%, 95% confidence interval (CI) (-1.6%, 17.6%); chi(2)=2.7; df=1; P=0.10. Forty-two out of 97 (43%) babies given skin-to-skin were partially or exclusively breast feeding at 4 months compared with 40 out of 100 (40%) of babies in the routine care group. The difference in breast-feeding rate at 4 months was 3.3%, 95% CI (-10.3%, 16.7% ); chi(2)=0.22; df=1; P=0.64. The mean temperature 1 hr after birth was higher with skin-to-skin than routine care. The difference in means was 0.15 degrees C; 95% CI (0.03, 0.28); P=0.02. A larger proportion of mothers (87/97 [90%]) were very satisfied with skin-to-skin care, compared with 60 out of 102 (59%) in the control group; 83 out of 97 (86%) of the mothers in the intervention group said that they would prefer to receive the same care in the future compared with 31 out of 102 (30%) mothers in the control group.Conclusionsthe difference between the groups in the success rate for the first breast feed and rates at 4 months was not statistically significant. However, mothers who had skin-to-skin contact enjoyed the experience, and most reported that they would choose to have skin-to skin care in the future. In this, the largest trial to date, previous concerns about baby-body temperature after skin-to-skin care were dispelled.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…