Maternal perception of early skin-to-skin contact with their very immaturepreterm infants of 27-30 weeks gestation

Background: Mothers are offered skin-to-skin contact with their preterm inf ants with the intention to promote bonding. But it is not known if the moth er of a very immature fragile infant perceives skin-to-skin contact as a he lpful intervention or a stressful situation. Patients and Methods: Mothers of singleton preterm infants (gestational age 27-30 weeks) began skin-to-skin contact as soon as the infant was breathin g spontaneously. They prospectively documented frequency and duration of sk in-to-skin contact, they rated their anxiety or confidence and their attach ment to the infant and described their observations of the infant daily for 14 days in a semistructured questionnaire. Results: 17 of 25 mother-infant-pairs in the observation period fulfilled t he entry criteria, 14 questionnaires about 196 skin-to-skin periods could b e analyzed (median gestational age 27.5 weeks (27-30), median birth weight 1130 g (695-1300)). Skin-to-skin contact began at a median age of 3 days [2 -7]. The median duration of the skin-to-skin periods was increased at mater nal request from 60 to 120 minutes between day 1 and 14 (p = 0.004). Even t hen 21% of the mothers wanted a still longer duration of skin-to-skin conta ct. Mothers reported anxiety only 5 times. 82% of the mothers reported posi tive own feelings during skin-to-skin contact and 78% felt that skin-to-ski n contact increased their attachment to their infant. Conclusion: The mothers studied perceived skin-to-skin contact with their v ery immature infants as a positive and helpful intervention. Skin-to-skin c ontact took place regularly and for increasing periods of time.