Skin To Skin Essay

The importance of skin-to-skin care for the childbearing family is that every newborn can benefit. Skin-to-skin is valuable because it promotes thermoregulation, cardio-respiratory stability, breast milk supply, and mother-infant bonding (Hugill, 2015; Baker-Rush, 2016; Gregson, 2011; Pigeon Turenne, Héon, Aita, Faessler, & Doddridge, 2016). The nurse’s role in skin-to-skin is to educate women and their families of its benefits. The nurse will be able to implement the carative factors of a teaching-learning experience with the parents, develop a helping-trusting relationship, as well as tend to basic human needs of the patients (Watson, 2008). Skin-to-skin is also called kangaroo care. After birth of the child this nursing intervention begins immediately. The nurse places the newborn in the prone position on the mother’s bare chest. (Pigeon Turenne, et al., 2016). The nurse can place blankets over the infant and begin drying the newborn. Weight of the newborn can be postponed until the initial maternal-infant bond has been made (Hugill, 2015). The nurse can assess the infant during kangaroo care. She/he should administer all other interventions, such as vitamin k injections, while kangaroo care is in process (Pigeon Turenne, et al., 2016). Hypothermia must be prevented as much as possible. The parental

This will be tailored to the mother’s feelings about breastfeeding (Watson, 2008). If she plans on breastfeeding this is a situation in which the nurse may offer guidance with skin-to-skin occurring first for a successful first-time breastfeeding. Research shows that if skin-to-skin occurs first, the infant will feed more properly in the short-term and long-term (Pigeon Turenne, 2016; Hugill, 2015). Routing reflexes naturally occur in the baby and there is minimal effort for the first time breastfeeding in the first hour after delivery (Crenshaw,