Background & Aim: The importance of breastfeeding and its exclusivity in the first six months of a child’s life is worldwide recognized. Despite that adherence to exclusive breastfeeding is far from international standards. Therefore, updating evidence on this topic is essential to demonstrate to parents and health professionals the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, demystifying ideas, and promoting adherence. Methods & Materials: An integrative review was conducted with a search in Medline, SciELO, and CINHAL databases, with the descriptors “breastfeeding", "breast", "feeding", "breastfeeding", "exclusive" and "benefits”, combined with the Boolean operator "AND" and “OR”, for studies published between 2014 and 2019. Of the 221 studies identified, eight were included for review. Results: Short-term and long-term benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for children were identified such as healthier eating habits, reduced length of hospital stay, favorable weight increase, lower body mass index, lower adiposity, lower total cholesterol values, better cognitive and behavioral development, as well as stability of metabolic levels in children with metabolic disorders. Conclusion: There are benefits for exclusive breastfeeding that must be explained to parents. Nurses must incorporate the best available evidence into their practice to enable parents to realize the impact of the choice of exclusive breastfeeding on the child's health, increasing their adherence.

Objective: to compare the axillar temperatures of newborns that are put immediately after birth in skin-to-skin contact under the Top Maternal device, as compared to those in a radiant heat crib. Methods: comparatives observational study of the case-control type about temperature of 60 babies born at the Obstetric Center and Normal Delivery Center of a public hospital of the municipality of Sao Paulo, being them: 29 receiving assistance in heated crib and 31 in skin-to skin contact, shielded by a cotton tissue placed on mother's thorax, called Top Maternal. Results: the temperature of the babies of the skin-to-skin contact group presented higher values in a larger share of the time measures verified, as compared to those that were placed in radiant heat crib, independently from the place of birth. Differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. Conclusion: the study contributes to generate new knowledge, supporting the idea of keeping babies with their mothers immediately after birth protected with the Maternal Top, without harming their wellbeing, as it keeps the axillar temperature in recommendable levels.

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