Immediate skin-to-skin contact at very preterm birth and effect on infant socio-emotional stress response and mother-infants cortisol co-regulation: secondary outcomes from the randomised clinical Immediate Parent-Infant Skin-To-Skin Study (IPISTOSS)

https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/10/1/e003778

The IPISTOSS trial was conducted at SUS and Karolinska Institute. 91 infants born at gestational age 28+0 to 32+6 from April 2018 to June 2021 were randomised to immediate skin-to-skin care (iSSC) (n=46) or conventional care (n=45) during the first 6 hours after birth. At 4 months corrected age, the infants were exposed to socio-emotional stress using the Face-to-Face Still-Face procedure (FFSF). Salivary cortisol was collected before and after FFSF. The iSSC group demonstrated heightened positive emotionality during FFSF compared with controls. They also had significant associations between mother−infant cortisol levels at baseline and 30 min post-FFSF, suggesting enhanced mother–infant hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis synchrony.