Parents' perception of skin-to-skin care with their preterm infants requiring assisted ventilation.
OBJECTIVE
To explore parents' perception of skin-to-skin care with their preterm infant who is on assisted ventilation, and to elucidate factors influencing the decision to continue or discontinue skin-to-skin care.


METHODS
Naturalistic inquiry, using open-ended, transcribed and audiotaped face-to-face and telephone interviews.


METHODS
Tertiary neonatal care setting and homes of parents.


METHODS
Eight mothers and one father who participated in skin-to-skin care.


METHODS
Two 60-minute skin-to-skin care sessions.


RESULTS
Three themes emerged: (a) ambivalence of parents toward skin-to-skin care, including subthemes of yearning to hold the infant and apprehension to do so; (b) need of a supportive environment; and (c) special quality of the parent-infant interaction, including subthemes of intense connectedness and active parenting. Perceptions of apprehension, need for a supportive environment, and active parenting differed between parents who continued skin-to-skin care during their infants' hospitalization and parents who did not. Three of the four parents who discontinued skin-to-skin care in the hospital resumed when their infants were home.


CONCLUSIONS
Differences in narratives of parents highlighted the importance of individualizing the skin-to-skin experience to the needs of parent and infant. Parents who resumed skin-to-skin care at home valued the experience while their infant was hospitalized but needed intervention to alleviate their apprehension, enhance their feeling of autonomy, and modify the environment.
Neu
M
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University of Colorado School of Nursing, Denver 80262, USA.
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007224:Infant Care / Q000379:methods*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D008297:Male; D017283:Neonatal Nursing; D010290:Parents; D012121:Respiration, Artificial; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires