Two papers on the implementation of skin-to-skin contact in the first hour after birth show successful continued implementation several months after an intervention with hospital staff facilitated by Healthy Children Project faculty at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda. Births were observed before and after the intervention, and then researchers returned approximately one month later to see how the hospital staff were doing with the changes. When they returned, they found that the staff had continued to implement skin-to-skin contact in the first hour after birth, and breastfeeding rates had increased.

The first paper, published in Scientific Reports, explains the processes and guidelines used in this study, including the PRECESS (Practice Reflection Education and Training Combined with Ethnography for Sustainable Success) methodology as well as the  2023 Skin-to-Skin International Guideline. It also gets into the detailed statistics of rates of skin-to-skin contact before and after the intervention and the effect on breastfeeding rates.

The second paper, published in Maternal Child Nutrition, focused on the experiences, and reactions of the midwives and medical interns who participated in the intervention. Through a series of interviews, the researchers were able to discern three key themes affecting the success of the continued implementation of skin-to-skin in the hospital. These themes included a commitment to consistent evidence-based care within the limitations of their physical space, supplies, and staffing constraints; addressing knowledge and skill regarding optimal practice of skin-to-skin care, and willingness to “take up” the change in practice to optimal skin-to-skin care for the benefit of mothers and babies. The interviews show the changes in attitude after witnessing immediate, uninterrupted, continuous skin-to-skin with mothers and their babies in their own hospital, with one staff member saying, “It gives a lot of happiness to the mother; the mother feels so good when they are holding their baby on her chest, and it gives them a lot of happiness and joy. They even give you room to do other things; if you are delivering the placenta or closing incisions, they don’t mind; they are just looking at their babies. I feel so good when we give extended periods of skin-to-skin, and I feel it is beneficial for both the mother and the baby. And I feel we were missing out on those things.”