A Quality Improvement Project Focused On Women s...

The article â€Å"A Quality Improvement Project Focused on Women’s Perceptions of Skin-to-Skin Contact after Cesarean Birth† was written by Judith Moran-Peters, Cheryl Zauderer, Susan Goldman, Jennifer Baierlein, and April Smith. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate the implications of the unavailability of skin-to-skin contact following a cesarean birth and to identify perceptions of women who performed skin-to-skin contact after their second cesarean birth. The study also sought to compare cesarean birthing experiences, particularly in relation to the facilitation of breast-feeding, in which skin-to-skin contact was and was not present. The project was conducted at a 408-bed Magnet-designated community hospital in a suburb of New York City. In 2009, this hospital had 1,547 births with an overall cesarean birth rate of 42 percent. Of the total cesarean births, approximately 50% were repeat, elective (nonemergency) cesarean birth. A total of 3 20 mothers constituted the potential study population for this quality improvement project. The inclusion criteria used to obtain the sample consisted of English-speaking women ages 18 years or older who were having a repeat, elective (nonemergency) cesarean birth. Women whose newborns required admission to the NICU or a transfer out of the hospital were excluded from the study. The total study sample consisted of six mothers between the ages of 27 and 40 years. The participants of the study delivered