Dr. Aya Tomita, PhD, RN, Graduate of Department of Midwifery and Women’s Health
Healthy full-term newborns exhibit instinctive feeding behavior immediately after birth. Providing care encouraging instinctive feeding behavior in the newborn is critical for the mother’s milk secretion. Early skin-to-skin contact (SSC) immediately after birth can promote primitive reflexes related to feeding in the newborn and imprint instinctive behaviors. In contrast, epidural analgesia delivery may interfere with the instinctive feeding behavior of the newborn.
We used the Japanese version of the Infant Breastfeeding Assessment Tool (IBFAT) to explore factors associated with instinctive feeding behavior in newborns. As for SSC, epidural analgesia, and synthetic oxytocin, which may be important factors relating to neonatal feeding behavior, we analyzed not only the presence or absence of the implementation of each factor, but also its relationship to the duration of SSC implementation, dosage and duration of drug administration.
Healthy full-term newborns had higher IBFAT scores approximately one day of birth when their mothers administered less fentanyl during epidural analgesia and also had a longer duration of SSC implementation immediately after birth. Newborns’ instinctive feeding behavior could be facilitated by prolonging the continuation of SSC, even if their mothers have epidural analgesia delivery, although lower dosages of fentanyl are more appropriate for newborn feeding behavior.
Access the full paper here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39876615/