At the Department of Pediatrics, Rikshospitalet, Oslo, Norway, a comparison was made between recent practice and earlier practice, regarding time from childbirth until fathers achieved close contact with their premature infants.
Delayed contact was measured in four ways: when fathers
first saw
touched
held their infant, and
saw their infants' eyes.
Methods:
Registration-schedule, existing sources of data, and interview were used. Interventions after the first study: small, stable, prematurely born infants were taken out of the incubators during their father's visit, in spite of the infants' need for a respirator. Skin to skin holding was introduced.
Findings:
Strongly significant differences were found between recent separation practices and the former practices. Waiting time until fathers held their infants was reduced by 66.87%.
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