An experimental, pilot study was designed to evaluate an approach to intra and post-operative cesarean nursing care aimed at minimizing maternal-infant separation. Nursing care in birthing situations involving cesarean intervention is often technologically driven and focused with a high likelihood of maternal-infant separation post birth because of hospital policies and routines that are not consistent with family-centered care. Nurses lack evidence about how to best support women and infants during and after cesarean birth and often spend less than 10% of their time providing supportive care. In light of the significant upward trend in cesarean births, nursing care of the cesarean mother and infant must be focused on actions that promote the mother-infant dyad. A nursing intervention protocol to control for spatial, tactile, olfactory, auditory and visual separation of mother and infant was developed from an extensive review of the literature. It was hypothesized that women receiving the experimental intervention would have a more positive childbirth experience, greater satisfaction, increased maternal comfort, less depressed mood and less anxiety and that their infants would have more stable thermoregulation, respiratory rate and pattern, lower stress levels and higher breastfeeding rates. A sample of fifty women having a live, term, singleton, scheduled repeat cesarean delivery was randomly assigned to blinded control and experimental groups with the control group receiving usual care and the experimental group receiving the protocol intervention. The Faces Anxiety Scale, the Childbirth Experience and Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale were used to measure maternal outcomes. Infant stress was measured by salivary cortisol enzyme assay. Analysis of variance procedures to examine common effects will be used to determine intervention success. Interaction effects will be explored but will not be analyzed using tests of statistical significance.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)