Decreasing day to first skin-to-skin holding in Infants <30 Weeks

Background: According to the CDC (2020) 1 out of every 10 pregnancies in the United States will result in a pre-term birth. Continued advancement of neonatal care has led to an increase in survival rates for these very preterm infants. Skin-to-skin (STS) holding has been widely studied and demonstrated to be a low-cost, effective and safe intervention that improves long-term growth and development for preterm infants. Staff's attitudes and beliefs surrounding STS can directly affect the facilitation and practice of STS. Methods: A 19 question descriptive cross-sectional survey that was adopted from a study developed by Vittner et al. (2017) and distributed among NICU staff, including registered nurses, respiratory therapists and neonatal nurse practitioners. The survey assessed the attitudes and beliefs surrounding changes to the STS holding protocol allowing infants born less than 30 weeks' gestation to be held after 72 hours of life. A retrospective chart review was done of eligible infants pre-and post-changes to the STS protocol and was analyzed using a Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The survey participants reported that 48% agree with the recent changes to the STS protocol, while 40% were neutral and 13% disagreed with the changes to STS protocol. The average day to first hold for infants born <30 weeks decreased from day of life 7 to day of life 4 was clinical significant but the Mann-Whitney U test p-value = .0703 was not statistically significant, Conclusions: The results suggested that the majority of the NICU staff felt that STS is an important part of care for preterm infants but that supported for changes in STS protocol for infants <30 weeks' gestation was mixed. Although the Mann-Whitney U test did not demonstrate a significant change in STS during the time frame of this project with additional data a decrease day to first STS may be found.