HOLD ME CLOSE

The importance of skin-to-skin time.

- MELANY BENDIX

The first moments after birth are not only a beautiful and special time for bonding with your new baby, but also critically important to your baby’s development – so much so that some researchers believe what happens in the first hour can impact your child’s future.

Michelle Walton – a therapeutic reflexologist specialising in pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period, a doula and owner of Johannesburg-based Birthrite – explains that the first hour after birth is crucial, because newborns go through nine distinct developmental phases during this time.

“Therefore, what happens in this first hour can have a lifetime effect on the baby, both negative and positive.” This is why skin-to-skin contact (also known as kangaroo care), for the first hour straight after birth is so vitally important, no matter what type of birth you’ve had, maintains Jill Bergman, a seasoned skin to-skin expert who runs Neuroscience for Improved Neonatal Outcomes (Nino) from Cape Town.

MOM’S CHEST IS BEST

The proven benefits of skin to skin are so clear that the World Health Organization recommends all newborns receive skin to skin immediately after birth.

“There are many studies that show that when mothers and babies are together, skin to skin, immediately after birth, the baby is more content and calm, and his temperature, heart and breathing rates, as well as blood sugar levels, are more stable than a baby who is not skin to skin with Mom,” says Erica Neser, a certified lactation consultant based in Stellenbosch.