MOTHERS TOUCHING NEWBORNS - A COMPARISON OF ROOMING-IN VERSUS MINIMALCONTACT

We compared the maternal behaviors of women who had extended and early contact (rooming-in) with their infants with those who had contact on ly during feedings. Thirty-one young, unmarried, predominantly black, lower-socioeconomic mothers and their infants were observed in the mot her's hospital room for 15 minutes after a morning feeding approximate ly 18 hours after delivery. A time sample unit checklist was used to r ecord each mother's behavior looking, talking, and touching directed t oward their infants and others, as well as watching television and tal king on the telephone. Analyses of variance revealed that the rooming- in mothers looked at, talked to, and touched their infants more, watch ed less television, and talked less on the telephone than mothers with minimal contact with their infants. These findings suggest that incre ased postpartum contact with infants leads not only to more interactio n, but also to more touching as well as touching in more intimate plac es (face and head), thus highlighting the value of rooming-in arrangem ents for mothers and infants.