Cuddle bundle resources encourage parental skin-to-skin contact with ICU babies

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at University Hospitals Plymouth has launched an initiative to encourage more parents to have skin-to-skin contact with their babies during their stay in hospital.

The ‘Cuddle Bundle’ initiative will help to support more parents to be able to hold and cuddle their babies, who are predominantly kept in incubators whilst in the NICU.

Alicia Regan, Paediatric Registrar, said:

“There are a number of benefits for babies being cared for in the NICU having skin-to-skin contact.

“Evidence shows that having cuddles can help to stabilise a baby’s heart rate, respiratory rates and temperature. They can also help to improve sleep, breastfeeding and digestion, as well as aid growth and development and reduce pain.

“For babies who are too unwell to come out of the incubator, we encourage contact through ‘hand hugs’, whereby a parent gently places their hands over their baby's head and then either cups baby's feet or places their hands lightly over baby's torso with arms and legs in a flexed position. This touch provides great comfort to baby and helps parents to feel that sense of closeness.”

As part of the initiative, a team of doctors and nurses have created a number of resources and educational tools including videos to help to give both staff and parents the knowledge and confidence to safely transfer and hold babies, where it is deemed clinically safe to do so.

Roisin McKeon-Carter, Neonatal Nurse Consultant, said:

“Understandably, in an intensive care environment, the main focus has to be on clinical care. That’s why these new roles are so important, as it will provide our staff with greater capacity to aid complementary care such as skin-to-skin, in addition to the support they already give to parents.

“Here in the NICU we work together with parents as our partners, we don’t simply see them as visitors of patients. It’s wonderful to see parents so enthusiastically engaged and working together with us as a team to advocate for more cuddles with their babies."

Emily Attard, Neonatal Sister, explains: “Having a baby in the NICU is always distressing for parents – they are never here by choice, it’s often through traumatic circumstances. It’s not the way that they wanted to start their lives together as a family. That’s why we involve the parents as much as possible with all aspects of their baby’s care. It’s so easy for new parents to feel alienated from their baby, especially with them being kept in incubators and connected to tubes and wires that constantly beep, so it’s so important for them to have that time to bond in the way they would have done if they were at home.”

The initiative is part of celebrating International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day earlier this month.