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What Happens When Parents Are Supported? Newborns Get 14.6 Hours of Skin-to-Skin On Day One

4 min readJan 7, 2026

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New Study: With education, average time newborn babies were held skin-to-skin by mothers in first 24 hours: 14.6 hours

New Study shows small changes = big impact. This is how it’s done! 👇👇

A new study shows targeted training for maternity professionals combined with education for parents increased the duration of immediate prolonged skin-to-skin for newborn babies up to 14.6 hours on the first day!

The not a minor improvement — that’s a shift in early-life biology.

Skin-to-skin contact supports:
🧬 microbiome seeding
❤️ physiological stability
🤱 breastfeeding initiation
🤍 bonding and regulation

This blog includes a summary of the main study findings and my own Take-Home Message. Would love to know what you think!

If you want to know about why skin-to-skin is so critical to a child’s long-term health, come to MICROBIOME PLAN 2026, our 3rd international virtual conference, 25–26 April 2026. Learn from 20+ world class speakers and join in the conversation. www.microbiomeplan.com

The New Study:

> n= 211 babies.

> Included targeted training for healthcare professionals and an educational package on breastfeeding and…

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Toni Harman
Toni Harman

Written by Toni Harman

I help parents and health professionals better understand the science of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and the microbiome. http://microbiomecourses.com