Clustered Pain Procedures in Skin-to-Skin Contact (SSC) Position for Full Term Newborns

Abstract

As a part of their routine care, full term newborns face many painful procedures immediately after birth and during the first couple days of life. Skin-to-Skin Contact (SSC) has been recommended as a non-pharmacological pain management intervention in newborns. However, the use of SSC in labor and delivery rooms as well as in postnatal units and nurseries is limited due to the discomfort that the nurses and phlebotomists themselves experience during positioning the newborns and themselves to complete these routine procedures. The objective of this paper is to describe a step-by-step procedure that was developed and used in a randomized clinical trial to manage newborns pain during clustered pain procedures. The procedure worked well and no complaints of discomfort were reported by the nurses during the study.