Abstract
Objective: to identify nurses' knowledge about the importance of skin-to-skin contact, still in the delivery room, for the continuation of breastfeeding. Methods: descriptive, exploratory, qualitative research, conducted with nurses in a delivery room of a public maternity hospital in Juazeiro do Norte – CE, with collection in the months of March and April 2017. For this, a semi-structured interview was used, with organization and interpretation of results based on Content Analysis. The study was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee. Results: the interview was conducted with 05 nurses, after reading the statements, two thematic categories emerged: Understanding about breastfeeding; Skin-to-skin contact as a tool for exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion: it was observed that nurses know the need for skin-to-skin contact to initiate breastfeeding, and try to perform it, for all deliveries, the use of this low-cost method, brings countless benefits to the mother and child and even to society.