Skin-to-skin contact is often recommended to help a baby breastfeed. This involves having your baby on your chest, in between your breasts, with her head under your chin, with baby wearing nothing except a diaper. Make sure you cover baby’s back with blankets, to keep her surrounded with your warmth. For a sleepy baby, or a baby having difficulty with latch, you bay have to have skin-to-skin contact for an hour, or sometimes longer, before she begins to show feeding cues. Even while baby is just snuggling with you, skin-to-skin contact offers many benefits!
A study compared infants with low temperatures after delivery. They were treated with skin-to-skin contact or placement in a radiant warmer. The kangaroo care group had slightly higher temperatures, and more of these infants had reached normal temperature within 4 hours of treatment, compared with the radiant warmer group.
[Huan, Y.Y.; Huang, C.Y.; Lin, S.M.; Wu, S.C. Effect of Very Early Kangaroo Care on Extra uterine Temperature Adaptation in Newborn Infants with Hypothermia Problems. Hu Li Az Zhi, 2006.]
Brazilian mothers of hospitalized babies who had skin-to-skin contact responded to the Visual Analogue Mood Scale before and after visiting their babies. They reported feeling calmer, stronger, well coordinated, energetic, contented, tranquil, quick-witted, relaxed, proficient, happy, friendly, and clear-headed. Mothers who did not have skin-to-skin contact only reported feeling clumsy.
[Continho de Macedo, E.; Cruvinel, F.; Lukasova, K.; Fama D’Antino, M.E. The mood variations in mothers of preterm infants in kangaroo mother care and conventional incubator care. Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, 2007.]
In a review of 16 randomized controlled trials and one quasi-randomized trial, 806 mother-infant pairs, of diverse socio-economic backgrounds, from six different countries were studied. Early skin-to-skin contact resulted in higher scores on all measures of breastfeeding status and duration. Babies were more likely to maintain temperatures and respirations in the normal range, less likely to cry, and less likely to have low blood glucose levels. There were no significant negative effects of skin-to-skin contact.
[Anderson, G.C.; More, E.; Hepworth, J.; Bergman, N. Early Skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2003.]
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