A low-cost intervention to promote immediate skin-to-skin contact in Northern Uganda

What is it about?

An intervention was conducted in northern Uganda at the delivery ward at Gulu Hospital, a government general hospital with approximately 4200 births per year, according to hospital records. The delivery ward had five wide delivery beds with vertically adjustable headboards. The beds could be separated by curtains to allow privacy. The routine care for newborns involved wrapping them in blankets and putting them on a table beside the resuscitation table. The paper describes actions taken to improve the rates of immediate skin-to-skin contact and the data collected before and after the intervention.

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Why is it important?

Skin-to-skin contact is also recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) (2018) to prevent heat loss, as hypothermia is one of the major causes of mortality in newborns (Darmstadt, 2006; Lunze et al, 2013). Up to 83% of infants born in hospitals in Uganda have hypothermia (Byaruhanga et al, 2005). Hypothermia is the leading cause of perinatal death and constitutes 39% of the causes (Ministry of Health Uganda, 2016a).