Mindful Kangaroo Care: Mindfulness Intervention for Mothers During Skin-to-skin Care

Very high levels of stress have been reported in parents with their infants admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Review of literature shows that the symptoms are consistent with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Acute Stress Disorder and many parents have depression that lasts longer than a month. Skin-to-skin care offers many benefits to the mother and the infant including reduction of maternal stress. However, it has been observed that mothers giving skin-to-skin care for preterm infants in an NICU environment focus on the cardiorespiratory monitoring and its alarms instead of focusing on the baby and \"being in the moment\". There have also been other challenges noted with maternal sleep while providing skin-to-skin and parental distraction on hand-held devices while providing skin-to-skin. Mindfulness offers a way to focus on being in the moment and accepting the present moment in a non-judgmental and compassionate manner. Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress in parents of babies admitted to NICU. To date, they are no studies looking at Mindfulness during skin-to-skin care. This study will explore the feasibility and acceptability of teaching mindfulness skills to mothers providing skin-to-skin care and studying its effects on maternal stress and distraction. This study involves providing Mindfulness-based strategies during skin-to-skin care to NICU mothers for four consecutive weeks. Participants will be enrolled through informed consent. All participants will be given pre and post participation questionnaires to examine the impact of the sessions on stress reduction, mental wellness and mindfulness quotient. The participants will also be encouraged to maintain a weekly kangaroo care log. Participants will be asked to fill out an acceptability form at the end of the 4 weeks. The data will be analyzed to study the effect of mindfulness on stress reduction and mental wellness. The study will also help understand the uptake and acceptance of such a course by NICU mothers. The results of this study will lead to a future randomized controlled trial looking at the impact of mindfulness practise during skin-to-skin care on parental stress reduction.