Skin to skin contact Research

Skin to skin contact helps premature babies to respond to touches the same babies who are born in a normal pregnancy period. Adults also benefit from skin to skin contact through various ways such as relationships, relief from stress and anxiety etc. This can be attributed from the argument that human beings are social animals by nature. Human beings are by nature attracted to each other and one of the ways in which this is reinforced is through skin to skin contact. Skin to skin contact is very crucial to the development and well-being of babies and adults. New born babies come with instinctive behaviors of wanting to breast feed. It has been observed that when there is skin to skin contact between a mother and a new born baby, the baby is able to locate the breast and attach itself to it.

This is one of numerous behaviors that are enhanced by skin to skin contact. (Phillips, 2013) Skin to skin contact can be very helpful to premature infants. Currently, 12 percent of babies are born as premature which is global health concern. Some of the researchers have attributed this to be guided by the mother’s heart sound which is assumed to be familiar with the baby because of spending a considerable amount of time in the mother’s womb. (Feldman, Rosenthal, & Eidelman, 2014) Also skin to skin helps in stabilization of new born babies’ temperature. It’s very important for babies to have a stable temperature to avoid complications. During pregnancy, the baby’s temperature is controlled by the mother through various techniques such as sweeting when it hot and shivering when it’s cold.

After birth, the baby must be able to control its own temperature. When this need is not meet, babies tend to cry in order to draw attention and be attended to. Researches have suggested that skin to skin contact reduces pain. Babies who experience skin to skin contact after clinical operations are more likely to have reduced pains than those who are not. It has been argued that skin to skin contact reliefs pain in accordance to the period at which the contact is maintained. This means that longer skin to skin contact reduces the pain with a greater measure than shorter contacts. (Clay, 2015) Again, skin to skin contact helps to strengthen the immune system in a human body. According to several researches done, skin to skin contact helps the level of cortisol in person’s body.

Cortison is one of main components responsible for stress in a person. Therefore, cortison suppress the immune system of a human body. Skin to skin contact brings the feeling of relaxation which means that it suppresses the level of cortison therefore boosting human immune response. According to the psychologists, having skin to skin contact between couples helps to improve their relationship. One of the researches done showed that 94% of couples who spend their night in contact with one another are happier with their relationship compared to sixty eight percent who don’t have contact. This shows the positive effect of skin to skin contact among adults. Additionally, Skin to skin contact also reduces the level of anxiety in human body. When there is skin to skin contact, the adrenal glands are signaled to stop releasing excessive amounts of cortisol.