What is it about?
The aim of this study was to determine the effects of common intrapartum medications on the instinctive behavior of healthy newborns during the first hour after birth through a prospective cohort study. Video was recorded of newly-born term infants during the first hour after birth while in skin-to-skin contact with the mother. The videos were coded and analyzed using Widström's 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior; the analyses were compared based on the labor medications mothers received.
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Why is it important?
Skin-to-skin contact after birth between mother and baby has immediate and long-term advantages. Widström's 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior offer an opportunity to evaluate a baby in the natural, expected and optimal habitat. Intrapartum drugs, including fentanyl administered via epidural and synthetic oxytocin (synOT), have been studied in relation to neonatal outcomes with conflicting results.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The effect of labor medications on normal newborn behavior in the first hour after birth: A prospective cohort study, Early Human Development, May 2019, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2019.03.019.
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Visual illustration of the 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior
Visual illustration of the 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior while skin-to-skin during the first hour after birth, photographs copyright Healthy Children Project, Inc. Used with permission.
The 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior per cohort over the first hour
The four cohorts are 1)control, exposed to no synOT or epidural fentanyl during labor, 2) exposed to fentanyl (but not synOT) during labor, 3) exposed synOT (but not fentanyl) during labor, 4) exposed to both fentanyl and synOT during labor.
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