06.17.18
Parent cleansing paramount prior to skin-to-skin care

Neonatal intensive care units increasingly encourage meaningful touch and skin-to-skin care—aka “kangaroo care—between parents and premature babies to aid the babies’ development. But a Michigan children’s hospital practicing skin-to-skin care noticed an unwanted side effect in 2016—a spike in Staphylococcus aureus (SA) infections among newborns. Hospital staff hypothesized that the two events were connected and