Development of a Predictive Model for Skin-to-Skin Contact Immediately after Birth: A Cross-Sectional Study.

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a predictive model for the establishment of skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted during the last trimester of 2022 and the first trimester of 2023 with women who had given birth in Spain. A questionnaire containing sociodemographic, psychosocial, and health variables referring to the mother and the newborn, as well as the Bond and Attachment questionnaire (VAMF, for its name in Spanish ) for the analysis of the mother-child bond and attachment, were administered. A multivariate analysis was performed, and areas under the ROC curve (AUC) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) and the predictive characteristics of these models were estimated. In total, 1077 women participated. The prevalence of early skin-to-skin contact after delivery was 50.2% (468) in the derivation cohort and 49.8% (464) in the validation cohort. Multivariate analysis showed that prematurity, type of delivery, and birth experience were statistically significant, so they were included in the model ( p ≤ 0.05). The predictive ability (AUC ROC) was good in both the derivation cohort, yielding 0.92 (95% CI: 0.89-0.95), and in the validation cohort, yielding 0.89 (95% CI: 0.85-0.93). This study developed a predictive model identifying factors facilitating early skin-to-skin contact between a mother and her newborn immediately after birth.