Parent Engagement Correlates With Parent and Preterm Infant Oxytocin Release During Skin-to-Skin Contact

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Oxytocin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To examine relationships between parental engagement and salivary oxytocin and cortisol levels for parents participating in SSC intervention.

Who Took Part

The study group was 28 infants.

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, both men and women.

Parental engagement was measured using the Parental Risk Evaluation Engagement Model Instrument (PREEMI) prior to hospital discharge.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and crossover study.

The infants were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

In the crossover set-up each of the infants took both Oxytocin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

A randomized crossover design study was conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit; 28 stable preterm infants, mothers, and fathers participated.

Saliva samples for oxytocin and cortisol levels were collected 15-minute pre-SSC, 60-minute during-SSC, and 45-minute post-SSC.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Infant, Premature, Intensive Care Units, Neonatal, Kangaroo-Mother Care Method, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Object Attachment and Oxytocin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Oxytocin in 28 infants.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2019 (Advances in neonatal care : official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.