Feasibility of AWHONN's Immediate and Continuous Skin-to-Skin Nursing Care Quality Measures.

Use of skin-to-skin contact after birth supports a newborn's physiologic transition from intra- to extrauterine life, mother-infant bonding, and the initiation of breastfeeding. Nursing Care Quality Measures 3 and 4 (Skin-to-Skin is Initiated Immediately Following Birth and Duration of Uninterrupted Skin-to-Skin Contact) from the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) were developed to support quality improvement efforts to increase skin-to-skin contact. AWHONN's nursing care quality measures were found to be feasible in hospitals in which medical records were configured to document the start and stop times of skin-to-skin contact. Electronic health records can be modified so that more accurate quality improvement data on immediate and continuous skin-to-skin contact are available. More accurate data will support validity testing.