Premature Newborns and Body Contact Issue

The thesis provides comprehensive insight into the issue of body contact in premature newborns. Having been born prematurely, the baby has suddenly and unexpectedly lost the contact with the mother. A parental touch full of love is one of the first ways of helping the newborn and renewing the contact with it. The thesis consists of a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part presents a brief overview of certain aspects of neonatology and body contact issues. This part, in the form of a coherent text, provides the reader with a comprehensive introduction into the topic. The empirical part aims to map active participation of mothers in premature newborn care. It explores the techniques of kangaroo care, their availability to premature newborns' mothers and support of these techniques by nurses. It evaluates the extent of nurses' awareness of the technique of butterfly touch massages and its practical use. It contains research carried out in five perinatological centers in the Czech Republic. The method used to collect necessary data and verify the hypotheses was questionaire. I had formulated eight hypotheses - five in relation to nurses caring for premature newborns and three applying to their mothers. The research sample contained 166 respondents, nurses working in the newborn section..