Skin-to-skin contact between parents and premature babies, or 'kangaroo care,' is encouraged in neonatal intensive care units; however it may result in an increase in Staphylococcus aureus infections among the babies if parents do not perform adequate skin cleansing, according to new research.
The researchers presented their findings at the 45th Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, June 13 to June 15, in Minneapolis.
Spectrum Health Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., noticed a significant spike in staph infections among newborns in 2016. The NICU at the hospital encouraged kangaroo care. Staff members decided to implement a three-part intervention to reduce the number of staph infections.
The intervention included:
• Increasing awareness of hand hygiene
• Mandatory education of staff around staph infections
• Implementation of parent skin cleansing prior to skin-to-skin care
In the first year after the intervention was implemented, 20 newborns contracted staph infections as compared to 59 in the previous year. Additionally, 98 percent of staff surveyed knew of the parental skin cleansing requirements after the intervention was implemented. They then educated the parents about the important of cleansing before skin-to-skin contact.
"We know that skin-to-skin care and meaningful touch are good for the baby, but the increase in infections showed how this type of care giving can carry a risk," said Gwen Westerling, BSN, RN, the study's lead author and an infection preventionist at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.