Supporting Mothers of Preterm Infants: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Status Not yet recruiting

Clinical Trial Summary

Preterm birth is the leading contributor to mortality among children younger than 5 years. One effective and inexpensive intervention is providing skin-to-skin care (STSC) whereby the mother of a preterm baby provides skin-to-skin contact to the newborn for at least a few hours, ideally every day. This intervention can make breastfeeding easier and can improve the health and development of the baby.

Unfortunately, despite the large health benefits, mothers in low-resource communities are often unable to practice STSC due to a range of institutional and economic barriers. STSC requires substantial time and financial commitments from mothers; they must travel from home each day to the hospital to engage in STSC and provide expressed breast milk. Low-income women with access only to limited federally provided unpaid family leave may have to choose between returning to work while their baby is in the NICU and being able to stay at home with their newborn after discharge from the NICU. Families of preterm infants also face direct financial costs of practicing STSC and breastfeeding (such as fees for parking and childcare for older children).

This trial aims to examine the impact of providing additional support to low-income mothers of babies born preterm in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to help them provide STSC. Half of the participants will be randomized to receive an additional financial support intervention while their infant is in the NICU. The study will examine how this intervention impacts mothers' health behavior while their child is in the NICU and up to three months after.

Most of the current and past policy efforts to increase STSC have focused on the delivery of STSC at hospitals, focusing on supply-side related challenges such as the lack of trained and informed staff. However, interventions that focus exclusively on hospitals are unlikely to be sufficient for low-income women if there are significant opportunity costs or transportation costs to simply being present at the hospital. This study aims to provide more evidence to determine whether removing these financial barriers has the potential to mitigate the poor outcomes of preterm babies born to lower socioeconomic status households.

Clinical Trial Description

n/a

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Caregiver), Primary Purpose: Health Services Research

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

Clinical Trial Details

NCT number	NCT02953795
Study type	Interventional
Source	Harvard School of Public Health
Contact
Status	Not yet recruiting
Phase	N/A
Start date	November 2016
Completion date	November 2018

View Details

See also
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Clinical trials are conducted in a series of steps, called phases - each phase is designed to answer a separate research question.

Phase 1: Researchers test a new drug or treatment in a small group of people for the first time to evaluate its safety, determine a safe dosage range, and identify side effects.
Phase 2: The drug or treatment is given to a larger group of people to see if it is effective and to further evaluate its safety.
Phase 3: The drug or treatment is given to large groups of people to confirm its effectiveness, monitor side effects, compare it to commonly used treatments, and collect information that will allow the drug or treatment to be used safely.
Phase 4: Studies are done after the drug or treatment has been marketed to gather information on the drug's effect in various populations and any side effects associated with long-term use.