Effect of Early Skin-to-Skin Contact to Breast Milk Volume and Breastfeeding Jaundice at 48 Hours after Delivery.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate effect of maternal-infant skin-to-skin contact in the first hour postbirth to breast milk volume and breastfeeding jaundice at 48 hours after delivery.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

This was a prospective cohort study. The subjects were 133 postpartum women, who delivered without complications between October 2013 and July 2014 at MSMC and was allocated into early skin-to-skin contact (SSC) and control groups. In the SSC group, the newborns were placed prone on mothers’ bare chest after finishing routine newborn care for at least 30 minutes. The breast milk volume were collected at 16-24 hours, 40-48 hours postpartum and before discharge. The infants’ microbilirubins were measured at 48 hours postbirth. Demographic data including age, parity, GA at delivery, birth weight and gender of the newborns were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test and t-test.

RESULTS

The mean breast milk volume in the SSC group were 5.68+5.46, 16.98+11.09, and 31.44+20.06 milliliters at 16-24 hours, 40-48 hours postpartum and before discharge, respectively, while the mean breast milk volume in the control group were 6.19+5.77, 13.99+13.07 and 25.81+20.26 milliliters, respectively in the same period of time, and no statistically difference of the breast milk volume was found between the two groups. The percentage of mothers who had the onset of lactation within 24 hours postpartum in the SSC group (95.51%, 85/89) was significantly higher than the control group (77.27%, 34/44, p<0.01). The percentages of breastfeeding jaundice cases were 16.85 in the SSC group and 27.27 in the control group, and had no significant difference.

CONCLUSION

Early skin-to-skin contact had no direct effect to breast milk volume and incidence of breastfeeding jaundice at 48 hours after delivery but related to the onset of lactation within 24 hours postpartum.