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May 7, 2019

Mothers and infant need to be close together during birth and from the hours that follow. It is safe and essential to keep mothers and babies together. Various evidence has supported the need for constant skin care, after vaginal birth and during and after caesarian surgeries for many stable mothers and other babies. This text reviews various works of literature supporting the need for skin to skin care during birth.

The best practice that supports safe and birth that is healthy is to keep the mother and babies together and make sure that the opportunities for the skin to skin care and breastfeeding are unlimited. There is a need for psychological need between the mother and babies the following birth since it helps to improve maternally and the newborn outcome (Bergman, 2013).

According to World health organization and United Nations children funds (2009), urge that every woman regardless of feeding preferences and method of birth to have interrupted skin to skin contact immediately after delivery for an hour until the first feeding. Skin to skin care refers to placing a newborn without clothes on the woman's bare chest with the only warm dried and unclothed blanket covering the back of the newborn. Other maternal care should take place during the skin to skin care or postpone it until the skin to skin care has taken place (Mark, 2010).

As stated by Buckley, (2014), the first hour after birth is very sensitive and is greatly influenced by the elevated levels of the maternal reproduction hormone, oxytocin which crosses the placenta to the baby. Skin to skin contact helps to protect the newborn baby from the negative effect of separation. Babies are born to interact with their mothers. A mother and her newborn baby are literal single biological organism until their umbilical cord has been cut. Attachment between the mother and infant is significant in the development of the new infant which helps to self-regulate and maintain their homeostasis. The skin to skin contact helps to control newborn exposure to the environment. Therefore, it is evident babies who had skin to skin contact have a higher survival during parents separation compared to those who have experienced radiant warmer.

There is an increase in the oxytocin level during the skin to skin care contact. It helps to promote mother to baby attachment and regulates thermal temperature, reduces newborn stress and helps faster transition to the postnatal life. (Dowell, 2012). During this sensitive time which is always referred to ass, the magical hour, golden hour or holy hour requires protection, respect, and support. New innate protective behavior may be suppressed due to delay or lack of skin to skin to skin care which may lead to behavioral disorganization and make attachment and breastfeeding to be more difficult. (More et al., 2012).

According to Braun K. (2011) skin to skin contact helps for the survival of the newborn baby. The surface to skin care contains biochemical activators that prime the brain rewards circuitry which increases the behavior of maternal care. The author also argues that hormones are responsible for attachment behaviors due to the skin to skin contact. This is very important to a vulnerable new baby born; one of the hormones that are generated due to the surface to skin contact is Oxytocin. This is a love hormone that results in the bond between the child and the mother. The hormone has shown to provide a relaxation mood, attraction, and facial recognition. Mothers who have had skin to skin contact with their newborn have a higher bond compared to those who never had the skin to skin contact.

Early separation and denial of skin to skin to skin care may disrupt maternal-infant bonding and reduce the dynamic response of the mother to the baby. This will later hurt maternal behavior (Dumas et al., 2013). According to Takashi (2011), there is a heightened response of stimulations which meets the new basic biological needs when the newborn is placed into the skin to skin care with the mother. An immediate skin to skin care helps in the colonization of the newborn maternal flora vs. the hospital flora. This helps in protection against infection and helps in breastfeeding of the infant (Sobel, 2011).

There is an increase in the neonatal hypothermia when skin to skin care is interrupted, some of the benefits that are accrued about skin to skin, are pleasant temperature, beneficial flora and a prime opportunity to crawl to the breast which is the best outcome between the mother and the baby.

How a baby is welcomed into the world in the first hours after birth affects its health, the impact can be either positive or negative. The article also emphasizes that healthy newborn babies who are placed skin to skin with their mothers immediately after delivery make a great transition from fatal into a new life with excellent stability in respiration, temperature, glucose, and less crying. This indicates that they have a less amount of stress ( Chamberlain, 2013).

Safety measures

When a newborn is on a routine care practice, many infants are exposed to various environments that are considered to be painful such as heel lance procedure, blood sampling, and intramuscular injections. Skin to skin care has shown neutralize these responses to a painful stimulus inclusive a decrease in the facial grimace, standard heartbeat and crying (Custardy, 2013).

According to WHO, not any person can perform skin to skin contact care. He recommends that there need to be well-trained healthcare personnel such as a registered, nurse, midwife or a nurse practitioner or any physician to be in attendance for any matter concerning skin to skin sessions (Moore et al., 2012). There have been cases of a sudden relapse and postnatal collapse infants which were unexpected because infants were positioned prone when doing skin to skin contact (Morgan 2014). Despite having no evidence of sudden infant collapse in various kinds of literature, there have been cases where infant became apneic.

It is essential that healthcare personnel trained on ways to manage skin to skin contact in postpartum and obstetric settings. Various training should include things like proper positioning, newborn and maternal safety measures and other health indicators should be measured keenly when there is an ongoing skin to skin contact (Stevens et al., 2014) even though many stakeholders urge on the use of neonatal assessment tools to monitor the wellbeing of infants, no means have been so far approved at this time.

Recommendation.

It is recommended that all infants who are higher than 37 weeks and 0 gestation should be placed in an immediate skin to skin contact for at least for one hour only if either cesarean surgery or vaginal delivery bore them. Additionally mothers of stable infants who are more than 37 weeks of gestation should have a choice to practice skin to skin care during their neonatal procedure, e.g vaccination, sampling of blood and many more, last but not least parents with healthy infant and greater than 37 weeks should be encouraged to have a frequent skin to skin contact with their newborn while being in hospital and after their discharge.

Conclusion

To Sum up, for a bay to adjust to the outside life of both skin to skin contact is very necessary. The art is supported by much organization who are responsible for the care and the wellbeing of their infants, apart from being safe to the mother and the babies it provides both short term and long-term benefits. From various research, it is evident that new postpartum skin to skin care tend to increase the psychological, stability and promotes optimal psycho-emotional wellbeing and also supports the structural and function of the newborn.

References

Chamberlain D. Babies remember the birth and other extraordinary scientific discoveries about the mind and the personality of your newborn. NY, New York: Ballantine Books.

Chen, J., Sadakata, M., Ishida, M., Sekizuka, N., and Sayam, M (2011). Baby massage ameliorates neonatal jaundice in full-term newborn infants. Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine. 2011; 223: 97–102

Kostandy, R., Anderson, G.C., (2013) and Good, M. Skin-to-skin contact diminishes pain from hepatitis B vaccine injection in healthy full-term neonates. Neonatal Network.; 32: 274–280https://doi.org/10.1891/0730-0832.32.4.274

Ludington-Hoe SM, Lewis T, Morgan K, Cong X, Anderson L, Reese S. (2016) Breast and infant temperatures with twins during shared kangaroo care. J Obstet Gynecol Neonatal Nurs.;35:223-231

Mason W, Berkson G. Effects of maternal mobility on the development of rocking and other behaviors in Rhesus monkeys: a study with artificial mothers. Dev Psychobilly. 1974; 8:197-211.

Moore, E.R., Anderson, G.C., Bergman, N., and Doswell, (2016) T. Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. CD003519

World Health Organization (WHO). (2017) Protecting, Promoting and Supporting Breastfeeding in Facilities Providing Maternity and Newborn Services 2017. Available from: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/ handle/10665/259386/9789241550086-eng.pdf?sequence=1. 2. Moore ER, Bergman N, Anderson GC, Medley N. Early skin-to-sky