Breastfeeding, mother-infant skin-to-skin contact, and the developing mother-infant relationship

What is it about?

Breastfeeding provides the optimal nourishment for young infants, yet many mothers, who begin as breastfeeding mothers, terminate the practice in their infants’ early weeks. Mother-infant skin-to-skin contact may be a means to help mothers maintain their decision to breastfeed. In mother-infant skin-to-skin contact, the baby, dressed only in a diaper, is placed on the mother’s bare chest so the frontal body contact between mother and infant is skin-to-skin. Skin-to-skin contact has been shown to help newborn infants adjust to life outside the womb. It also may help mothers to continue to breastfeed their infants beyond the infants’ early weeks. Breastfeeding may also benefit the mother-infant relationship itself. To investigate these possibilities, we followed two groups of mother-infant pairs. One group was asked to provide daily skin-to-skin contact over the infants’ first month and the other group (control group) received no request for skin-to-skin contact, although both groups kept daily records of the amount of skin-to-skin contact they provided. The mother-infant pairs were visited when the babies were one week, one month, two months, and three months. On each visit, mothers were asked their method of feeding their babies and a feeding session was assessed for mother-infant engagement. At one week, the percentage of mothers breastfeeding their infants was similar for both the skin-to-skin contact and control groups. All the mothers in the skin-to-skin contact group who began the study as breastfeeding mothers continued to breastfeed their infants though their babies’ first three months, whereas the percentage of control group mothers who were breastfeeding their infants declined during this time. Mother-infant skin-to-skin contact was found to help mothers maintain the decision to breastfeed through the infants’ early months, which is a time period when many mothers terminate their initial choice to breastfeed. Mothers who breastfed their infants had more positive maternal interactions during feeding than non-breastfeeding mothers, suggesting that breastfeeding benefits the developing mother-infant relationship. Feeding is where the mother-infant relationship is first established. It is the familiar and intimate context in which mothers and infants learn to adjust and adapt to each other. Breastfeeding appears to enhance this process.

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Why is it important?

The study explored the benefits of breastfeeding beyond infant nourishment by examining its effect on maternal behavior. It also examined mother-infant skin-to-skin contact as an intervention to help mothers maintain their decision to breastfeed.

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