Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is promoting the importance of skin-to-skin contact immediately following birth with a dedicated awareness event called Skin to Skin September.
There is a growing body of evidence which indicates many benefits to both the mother and the baby when enjoying undisturbed skin-to-skin contact in the time immediately following birth. These benefits include being calming and relaxing both the mother and baby, supporting the development of a close loving relationship, regulating the baby’s temperature and creating the correct conditions for early feeding.
Recommendations by the World Health Organisation and NICE Guidelines suggest that skin-to-skin care should take place as soon as possible after birth, and this should be undisturbed for at least an hour, and until after the first feed.
At Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, data shows that approximately 70% of mothers and babies initiate skin-to-skin contact. During Skin to Skin September, staff are focusing on promoting the importance of skin contact and trying to understand potential barriers and find creative solutions to ensuring mothers and babies have the opportunity to remain undisturbed in skin contact, for at least an hour and until after the baby’s first feed.
Staff have been taking their #SkintoSkinSeptember ‘information trolley’ around the maternity unit, sharing information with the team and listening to their experiences of barriers they may face whilst supporting mothers and babies to have an hour of skin-to-skin care.
The team have also been holding drop in sessions to support staff in updating their knowledge on the benefits of an undisturbed ‘magical first hour’ following birth, and information boards have been put up around the unit for both staff and women and their families.
Andrea Whitehead, Service Development Midwife at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, said: “Initial discussions have generated lots of ideas for improvement and we are already testing our first changes. Staff suggested that skin-to-skin care can be interrupted by rushing to weigh the baby soon after birth; we are now using the hashtag #Wait4Weight to promote the benefits of waiting until after the first hour before weighing baby. We are also testing a new process in our maternity theatres where we have changed the location of the weighing scales from being inside the theatre to being in the recovery area. We are collecting feedback from women and their families and from staff to find out their views about this change and we are measuring to see if the change results in an improvement in the number of mothers and babies having undisturbed skin contact for an hour following a caesarean birth.”
“Although we are just halfway in to Skin to Skin September, initial data is promising; and we are already starting to see an improvement in the number of mothers and babies having an undisturbed magical first hour.”