Laraeeb Abbasi

ISM- Period 6

Moore, Elizabeth R., Gene C. Anderson, Nils Bergman, and Therese Dowswell. "Early Skin-to-skin

Contact for Mothers and Their Healthy Newborn Infants." The Cochrane Database of Systematic

Reviews. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 16 May 2012. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Mother-infant separation post-birth has been made common in Western Society mainly during the
20th century
This practice completely diverges from past evolutionary history because in the past, skin to skin
contact was the main reason behind infant survival
Early skin-to-skin contact (SSC) begins ideally at birth and involves placing the naked baby,
head covered with a dry cap and a warm blanket across the back, prone on the mothers bare
chest.
According to neuroscience, this intimate contact between mother and infant occurs during a
psychophysiologically sensitive period for programming future physiology and behavior and
helps develop key functions in infants
Results show that SCC should last until the end of the first successful breastfeeding, in this case,
it is shown to positively affect the early infantile self-regulation system
According to research, in mammalian biology, maintenance of the maternal milieu following
birth is required to elicit innate behaviors from the neonate and the mother which help encourage
successful breastfeeding and as a result, survival for the infant
Separation from the mother was shown to elicit a greater distress emotion, human infants placed
in a cot cried 10 times more than SCC infants
In studies done on rat pups, the pups who received the least attention from their mothers had the
lesser amounts of intelligence and decreased health throughout their lives
Infants who SCC are more likely to be able to nurse more effectively and also display stronger
activity and innate behaviors including the birth cry, relaxation, awakening and opening the eyes
prior to birth
In a study done with infrared thermography of the whole body during the first hour postbirth,
SSC was found to be as effective as radiant warmers in preventing heat loss in healthy full term
infants.
SSC also causes increased levels of oxytocin in the mother, Increased oxytocin levels physically
causes the mothers breasts temperature to rise to provide warmth for the infant and also
decreasing maternal anxiety and increasing calmness and social responsiveness it reportedly also
enhances parental behaviors

This source was very in depth and thoroughly explained the benefits and history behind skin to skin
contact in a very scientific manner with background included from various other studies, it was most
helpful in explaining positive effects on both mother and infant.