Evidence-Based Nursing Research: Improving Mother-Infant Skin Contact

This report addresses the problems identified in prior research regarding the importance of skin-to-skin contact (SSC) between mothers and infants, focusing on the ignorance surrounding its benefits and the lack of guidelines and facilities for its implementation. The report advocates for the applicatio...Read More

Running head: EVIDENCE BASED NURSING RESEARCH 1
Nursing: Evidence Based Nursing Research
Student’s Name
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EVIDENCE BASED NURSING RESEARCH 2
Following the prior research work on the evidence-based improvement on the skin-to-
skin contact between mothers and their infants at birth, there were two primary problems
identified. The first problem was the ignorance of people about the importance of Skin-to-
Skin Connection (SSC) as a method of improving mother and child relationship. The lack of
relevant guidelines and facilities is another problem that has resulted in the limited
application of SSC approaches to mother-infant care within the early hours of delivery
(Boundy O. Ellen et al. 2018). Therefore, to help mothers who have given birth to have a
good relationship with her child, there is need to advocate for the application of SSC
approaches rather than rushing the babies to warmer conditions for the cases of health
assessments.
Various issues arise in the performance of SSC including but not limited to inferior
methods resulting from lack of knowledge of nurses and their disinterestedness. Another
issue is the insufficiency of trained doctors in labor rooms (Abdulghani, Edvardsson & Amir,
2018). Suggestions like increased awareness on the importance of SSC, the employment of
more doctors who understand maternal health and the provision of proper guidelines and
facilities are proposed to address the issues.
Educating both doctors, nurses and the mothers on the performance of SSC is
essential. Especially for the mother, education allows her to understand the consequences of
performing the process and even failure to complete it. Nurses and doctors, on the other hand,
get a better understanding of the rules they need to follow during the process. For that reason,
various initiatives are put in place to help make the process effective. Boundy et al (2018)
proposes the initiatives to include antenatal counseling, audio-visual forms of training,
communicating the policies of SSC and the encouragement of experienced nurses to come up
with proper guidelines to improve the situation among other initiatives.

EVIDENCE BASED NURSING RESEARCH 3
References
Abdulghani, N., Edvardsson, K., & Amir, L. H. (2018). Worldwide prevalence of mother-
infant skin-to-skin contact after vaginal birth: A systematic review. PloS one, 13(10),
e0205696. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205696
Boundy, E. O., Perrine, C. G., Barrera, C. M., Li, R., & Hamner, H. C. (2018). Trends in
maternity care practice skin-to-skin contact indicators: United States, 2007–
2015. Breastfeeding Medicine, 13(5), 381-387. https://doi.org/10.1089/bfm.2018.0035