A Phase 1 interventional study of Skin-to-Skin contact in Moderate to Late Prematurity, sponsored by National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). Completed at 2 sites in United States. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2009-08-10.
Sponsored by National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) · Phase 1, Interventional, and Supportive care
To see if infant outcomes will improve when mothers are helped to hold their preterm infants skin-to-skin as soon as possible after birth and as often as possible and for as long as possible each time during the next five days.
A similar intervention was studied in a RCT with fullterm infants but this was done with emphasis on close contact rather than skin-to-skin contact and lasted only the first 6 hours postbirth. This study was conducted by the same PI and funded by the National Center for Nursing Research, NIH 1990-1994. This research yielded numerous significant and beneficial differences.
Two pilot studies were done with healthy late preterm infants and mothers who planned to breastfeed. Skin-to-skin contact began in the delivery room. The first pilot was a descriptive exploratory study with 10 mother-infant dyads done in Cali, Colombia; skin-to-skin began at birth and lasted through hour 6 when all dyads went to the postpartum ward. Follow-up was through hospital discharge on the second day. All outcomes were positive.
The second pilot was an RCT done in the United States with a well balanced sample of 8 dyads, 4 in each group. Mean observation time lasted 47 hours (Medicaid required discharge time for the mothers) with skin-to-skin contact occurring 84% of the time. All outcomes favored the skin-to-skin group, for example 3.8 days to discharge home compared to 14.5 for the controls. Follow-up was at one year and similarly positive.
Similar differences were hypothesized for the RCT reported here in which the intervention was extended to the care of somewhat smaller and sicker preterm infants and lasted five days unless the infant was discharged sooner. The consent form was in layman terms, four pages long, and fulfilled all the requirements of the Institutional Review Boards of the Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals Case Medical Center and its General Clinical Research Center, and Kadlec Medical Center, Richmond, WA.
2,610 studies on the registry are indexed under Premature Birth; 507 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 100 is above the median of 84 across 1,722 interventional studies indexed under Premature Birth.
Browse Premature Birth studies →National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) is the lead sponsor of 51 studies on the registry; none are open to participants now.
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Mother and Infant Dyads
Infants:
Mothers:
Exclusion Criteria:
Infants:
Mothers:
Control infants received the same standard care as infants who were not in the study. Infants were kept warm in incubators or warmer beds and were wrapped in blankets when held by their mothers. Hospital staff was responsible for providing standard care.
Behavioral: Skin-to-Skin contact
Infants in the Skin-to-Skin group also had standard care provided by hospital staff. In addition, the researchers facilitated skin-to-skin contact by placing diaper-clad infants prone between their mothers' breasts as soon as possible after birth. Thereafter the infants and their mothers experienced skin-to-skin contact as often as possible and for as long as possible each time throughout the protocol.
Also known as: Kangaroo Care
Infant Temperature
Time frame: A total of 60 measrements for each outcome beginning at birth once every 15 minutes and gradually decreasing in frequency to once every 6 hours by Day 5.
Infant Behavioral State
Time frame: A total of 60 measrements for each outcome beginning at birth once every 15 minutes and gradually decreasing in frequency to once every 6 hours by Day 5.
The record gives a start of Jul 1996, a primary completion of Dec 2001 and a completion of Dec 2001. It does not say whether these dates are actual or estimated.
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This study is completed, as verified in Aug 2009. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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