Barriers and enablers to skin-to-skin contact in healthy neonates: a qualitative study

The present study is performed to identify the barriers and enablers to early skin-to-skin contact after vaginal delivery in healthy neonates to promote this basic care in Iran. This is a qualitative study with an inductive content analysis approach. We performed in-depth and semi-structured individual interviews with stakeholders including maternity care providers, medical students, hospital directors, and experts of the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The data obtained from these qualitative interviews were analyzed based on the eight steps proposed by Wildemuth, and Zhang (2016) for conventional content analysis.

In this study, skin-to-skin contact barriers appeared in 5 categories: 1) Guideline inefficiency, 2) lack of knowledge and skills, 3) nature (essence) of the context of the skin-to-skin contact process, 4) Inefficiency in supervision, and 5) Limitation of standard facilities. The insight gained from identifying the enablers and obstacles of skin-to-skin contact can assist in developing an implementation strategy at the individual and organizational levels.  Moreover, it provides early, continuous, and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact after birth.