The Effect of Mother-Infant Skin to Skin Contact after Birth on Third Stage of Labor: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: One of the causes of postpartum hemorrhage is prolongation of third stage of labor. Mother-infant skin to skin contact (SSC) immediately after delivery is one of the non-pharmacological interventions to reduce this stage. Studies which assessed the effect of mother-infant SSC after delivery on duration of the third stage of labor reported controversial results on this issue. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of mother-infant SSC immediately after birth on the duration of third stage of labor Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the databases of PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, SID, Ma-giran IranDoc and Google Scholar were searched from 2000 to 2018, using the keywords related to the objec-tives of this review to access randomized control trials published in Persian or English. The quality of papers was examined using Cochran s Risk of bias tool. Data was analyzed using Stata software. We used I2 index and Chi-square test to investigate heterogeneity and Egger’s and Begg’s tests to assess publications bias. Random effects model was used to combine the data. Results: Six studies were entered into the meta-analysis. The third stage of labor in SSC group was shorter than that of control group with a mean difference of -1.33 and 95% CI (-2.31 to -0.36) and this difference was statistically significant (P=0.007). Conclusion: Mother-infant SSC decreases the duration of third stage of labor. Therefore, the current study provides some evidences to use this non-pharmacological method in order to accelerate the third stage of labor and ultimately prevent postpartum hemorrhage.