Clinical Trial of Immediate Skin to Skin Contact at Birth Early vs. Immediate (CPPITLH)

Human lactation is a simple, cost-effective strategy contributing to infant and maternal mortality control. Skin to skin contact (SSC), is an immediate postpartum period strategy that has proven to benefit the initiation and continuation of human lactation and decreased hospitalization during the first week of life. This study aims to determine the effect of the initiation of SSC at birth (immediate vs. early) in healthy, full term newborns treated at Universidad de La Sabana Clinic, on the duration of exclusive human lactation. Research question: What is the effect of immediate SSC at birth (immediate vs. early) on the duration of exclusive human lactation in full-term newborns treated at the Universidad de La Sabana Clinic? Methodology: A random blind clinical trial was performed in which full-term healthy newborns that are attended at the Universidad de La Sabana Clinic are included. The blind participants will be those persons measuring the results and analysing the data. The sample size is calculated for a type I error of 5%, a two tailed type II error of 20%, therefore estimating percentage losses of 30%; 150 infants were included per group. Randomization will be performed using permuted, size 6 blocks. Descriptive analysis will be conducted using central tendency and dispersion measurements. A bivariate analysis will be performed to determine which variables are associated with exclusive human lactation at 6 months. For continuous variables, the Student t- test will be used for independent samples or the Wilcoxon rank sum test, in case the assumptions of normality for the t-tests are not fulfilled. The assumption of normality will be evaluated with the Shapiro Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Categorical variables in contingency tables will be constructed, assessing independence between variables with the Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test when the assumption of the number of cases is not met by the cells in the contingency tables, times two.