Neonatal nurses’ beliefs about almost continuous parent–infant skin‐to‐skin contact in neonatal intensive care

Aims and objectives To describe what nurses believe about almost continuous skin‐to‐skin contact for preterm infants between 320–360 weeks gestation. Background Skin‐to‐skin contact a few hours per day has become standard care for preterm infants in most high‐technology neonatal intensive care units. However, few units practice Kangaroo Mother Care which involves almost continuous skin‐to‐skin contact. Design A qualitative descriptive design. Methods An online questionnaire with open‐ended questions was administered to 129 nurses at three neonatal units. Data were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Findings Nurses believed they would lose control because of limited access to the infant and would not be able to provide adequate care. Nurses also believed that mothers practicing almost continuous skin‐to‐skin contact would feel trapped and would experience stress if they could not meet the demands of the method. Conclusions Although the nurses can describe several of the documented benefits of almost continuous skin‐to‐skin contact, an underuse continues to exist. Relevance for clinical practice Beliefs described by the nurses are important to consider and resolve if the goal is to implement and provide Kangaroo Mother Care.