Laila Kristoffersen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and colleagues conducted a clinical trial and concluded that immediate skin-to-skin contact of very preterm infants does not affect their neurodevelopment in early childhood. The study involved 108 infants born between 28 weeks 0 days and 31 weeks 6 days of pregnancy, weighing more than a kilogram, without major birth defects and not requiring oxygen or intubation. They were randomly either taken immediately to a standard incubator or first left in skin-to-skin contact for two hours. Cognitive development was assessed at ages 2–3 years using the BSID-III scale. The results were published in JAMA Network Open.
Eighty percent of children were assessed at 2–3 years of age and 75 percent were assessed using the BSID-III. No differences were found between the main and control groups in cognitive scores (p = 0.94) or in the likelihood of developmental delay (p = 0.83). However, among those who had contact with their mother after birth, there were more who were breastfeeding at discharge (p = 0.04).