Monash: If parents hold oxygen-deprived newborns ‘skin to skin’, there are significant health benefits

New Australian research has revealed a simple action parents can take to help ensure the health of their unwell newborns.

For parents of babies who suffered a deprivation of oxygen at birth, the research is set to inform new life-changing care.

The action of a parent holding their newborn child “skin-to-skin” has been proven to bring major benefits to babies who suffered severe birth asphyxia.

This condition occurs when the baby experiences a prolonged lack of oxygen in the lead-up to or during the birth.

Babies can face a host of health issues ranging from immediate severe risk of brain damage and cerebral palsy, to other long-term difficulties, including developmental delays.

It’s a life-threatening condition that causes more than 900,000 deaths internationally, according to the World Health Organisation.

The new research from the Monash Health team looks at “kangaroo care” - a practice where the parents hold their baby naked, except for a nappy, against their bare chest.

General benefits from this action are well known, but this is the first study to ever involve babies with severe birth asphyxia.

Arvind Sehgal, a Monash Health professor, said the first baby involved in the study showed a big improvement with just a few minutes of kangaroo care.

“We could not actually believe our eyes,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“Within five minutes … the (baby’s brain) oxygen levels started going up.

“You read stories and you read published articles, but here we are seeing this with our own eyes.”

This was just one example of the hopeful findings their study of 13 babies returned.

After only one hour of skin-to-skin contact, the suffering babies’ heart function and blood flow to the brain proved by 20 per cent.

On top of this, the brain oxygen delivery was also 8 per cent higher.

Completed across a period of two years, the study was published in the Journal of Perinatology late in 2025.

Professor Sehgal said that the 20 per cent figure may not sound like much, but it would typically take a lot of medications to prompt an improvement that significant

“This intervention, which is simple, family-friendly, universally acceptable and essentially no cost, is showing such immense benefits to the baby’s brain and heart.”

Now, researchers hope that regular and long kangaroo care sessions will become standard practice.

It is understood that the babies respond so positively to skin-to-skin time because it facilitates a reduction in stress levels.

Rebecca Ellingford, a mother from Melbourne, told the Daily Telegraph that she saw an improvement in her daughter Gigi “pretty much straight away” after starting kangaroo care.

Her now two-year-old was born with severe birth asphyxia and transferred to Monash Children’s Hospital for emergency treatment.

“We were on board to do whatever we could to help Gigi, and being a part of a bigger study, we hoped it would help other babies too,” Ms Ellingford said.

“Because Gigi underwent cooling therapy, she was separated from me quite frequently so when I did hold her she was instantly settled, instantly calmer.

“Gigi seemed to enjoy it, I’m pretty sure she was asleep for that entire study.”

Two years on, and Gigi is a thriving and energetic toddler, who has achieved all her milestones.