Categories
Change Password!
Reset Password!
Skin-to-skin contact during the third stage of labor substantially reduces the chances of uterine atony, postpartum blood loss ≥500 mL, and average blood loss up to 24 hours after birth.
According to a systematic review and meta-analysis, immediate skin-to-skin contact (SSC) between mother and newborn after childbirth may play a critical role in minimizing postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), one of the leading causes of maternal mortality worldwide.
Researchers analyzed 18 prospective clinical trials to explore the impact of SSC on blood loss following childbirth. The review followed PRISMA guidelines and included trials identified through searches of Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and CINAHL. The risk of bias was checked via the revised Cochrane RoB 2 tool for the randomized trials and the ROBINS-I tool for the non-randomized studies. Meta-analyses were carried out using STATA 18.
SSC was linked with a reduced occurrence of uterine atony and a lower chance of blood loss ≥500 mL. Furthermore, SSC was related to a prominent drop in average blood loss during the third stage of labor, within the first 2 hours postpartum, and at 24 hours after delivery. However, the study found no vital differences in the incidence of severe PPH. Despite these promising results, the authors caution that many of the included studies carried a high risk of bias, and further high-quality research—particularly in caesarean births—is prudent to validate the findings.
Given that PPH continues to be a major cause of maternal mortality, especially in low-resource settings where access to uterotonic medications may be limited, SSC presents a low-cost, evidence-based intervention with the potential to improve maternal outcomes globally.
BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth
Efficacy of skin-to-skin contact between mother and newborn during the third stage of labour in reducing postpartum haemorrhage risk
Sandra Martínez-Rodríguez et al.
Comments (0)