Immediate skin-to-skin contact for 2 hours improves infant and maternal outcomes in neonatal careNew guidelines recommend skin-to-skin contact for mothers and newborns

Immediate and continuous skin-to-skin contact between a mother and her newborn is associated with numerous health benefits. Benefits for infants includes improved thermoregulation, stabilization of heart rate and respiration. Benefits for mothers include reduced maternal postpartum bleeding and improved maternal blood pressure regulation. Benefits for both include reduced stress, earlier initiation of breastfeeding, and enhanced mother–infant bonding. There is a need to scale-up the clinical implementation of skin-to-skin contact for all newborns across care settings. In particular, current practices should be reconsidered for infants born preterm, with low birth-weight, requiring specialized medical interventions, and after instrumental births/caesarean sections. This also requires reorganization of maternal and newborn care. As emphasized by the World Health Organization in its implementation strategy for scaling up kangaroo mother care (2023), the mother-newborn dyad should be regarded as an inseparable center around which health care is organized, enabling zero separation. This article presents a translation of a Swedish national guideline recommending immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact for at least the first 2 hours after birth for all newborns, followed by a mother–newborn couplet care model including continued skin-to-skin contact. In mother-newborn couplet care the mother and her newborn, regardless of medical needs or clinical complexity, are cared for together in the same physical environment to minimize separation. Implementation requires multidisciplinary collaboration across operations, clearly defined responsibilities, and access to appropriately adapted facilities, equipment, and care processes across all settings in which mother-newborn dyads receive care. The guideline is intended for healthcare professionals and managers across the continuum of maternal, obstetric, neonatal, anesthetic, surgical, and intensive care in Sweden. It applies to all mothers and newborns during the first hours after birth and throughout the subsequent hospital care when both are managed in a hospital setting. The guideline includes a scientific rationale, definitions, recommendations, implementation guidance, impact assessment and quality indicators for monitoring and evaluation. The original Swedish version of this guideline was published in 2024. It has been reported to be helpful in the implementation in Swedish hospitals. We recommend others to make similar national, regional and/or local guidelines to support implementation of these innovative, non-pharmacological interventions to improve maternal and infant health.