Skin-to-skin Contact
Benefits of Kangaroo Care for Mother and Baby
For years, hospitals routinely separated mothers and babies after birth. Peering through the window at the line of cribs to find your own baby was commonplace. Now parenting and birth experts alike know that mothers and babies need to be close to one another as early and for as long as possible in the first few weeks and months of life.
Ideally, the close contact includes the baby unwrapped down to their diaper and tucked under mother's clothing so that both mother and baby can begin or continue the attachment/bonding process. There are many reasons why skin-to-skin contact is vital for a baby's healthy growth and development.
Skin-to-skin Contact Helps Baby's Temperature
When the baby is born, her little wet body is immediately exposed to the much colder temperatures of our environment. Placing the baby on mother's chest and covering them both with warm dry towels or a blanket will help the baby to not lose precious body heat. Mother's body heat often does a better job of warming her baby than a radiant warmer used in hospitals.
Skin-to-skin Care Helps Preterm Infant
Research shows that skin-to-skin care (also called kangaroo care) is especially helpful for preterm infants. The close contact between mother and baby helps to regulate the preterm baby's heart rate and respiration and the preterm babies sleep more deeply. Because the preterm infants gain weight more quickly, they are discharged sooner than babies who do not have the benefit of kangaroo care. In some cases, babies receiving kangaroo care had as much as a 50% shorter hospital stay (Ludington, 1998). The babies who received skin-to-skin care also cried less and for shorter periods of time.
Skin-to-skin Care Helps to Initiate Breastfeeding
As baby is nestled next to the mother's breast, he will much more readily begin to latch well and suckle even within the first hour of life. Skin-to-skin contact is often one of the best ways to ensure that breastfeeding gets off to a good start. In cases where the mother is unable to hold her baby skin-to-skin after birth, the father can offer kangaroo care. He may even find that holding his baby this close is an effective way to soothe his little one in the first few weeks after birth.
Skin-to-skin Contact Reduces Reaction to Pain
Studies have also shown that babies showed a decreased response to pain with a heel prick when they had skin-to-skin contact with their mothers (Castral et al, 2008). Based on this evidence, parents can request that any heel pricks done at their place of birth or care provider's office be done while mom and baby have skin-to-skin contact with their baby.
Kangaroo Care at Home with Nursing Apparel
In the first few weeks after birth, both parents can enjoy having skin-to-skin care with their newborns. Mothers can benefit from special nursing tops that are designed to make skin-to-skin care easy. This nursing apparel is constructed to allow mom and baby as much skin-to-skin time as possible, while making breastfeeding both discreet and convenient.
Requesting Immediate Skin-to-skin Contact After Birth
If you are interested in having your baby brought to your chest so that you can enjoy uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact, it is a good idea to include this request in your birth plan. You should also remind your birth team (care provider and labor nurse) verbally during labor that, barring any complications, you would like to have your baby remain skin-to-skin on mother's chest ideally until after the first breastfeeding session.
Skin-to-skin with baby.
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