Those were the days weren’t they? Or were they ?
This week I met up with a friend (pseudonym Niamh) who is a mother of four. She recounted to me each tender moment that each of her children was born . The last three were born by Caesarean section . “Did you hold them straightway?” I asked .
Niamh replied “to be perfectly honest no – I held none of my children that were born by Caesarean section immediately in fact not for severel hours ” Niamh then recounted to me the birth of her son – when he was about 6 hours old she had still not seen him properly and asked a midwife how he was doing – the midwife told her that he was fine but due to breathing problems he was in an incubator . SIX HOURS !! I want to add that no one had told her until she asked .
If you are a midwife , an anaesthetist , an operating department practitioner or a theatre nurse. If you work in an operating theatre , or if you teach those who do -I want you to think carefully about why we must all strive to keep mothers and babies together in the theatre setting .
I know it’s becoming more common for skin to skin to happen and I realise that if it’s not happening that to fight the system and challenge separation is difficult but we must keep moving forwards . The reason is simple – skin to skin makes babies happy and it makes mothers happy and feel like mothers . It reduces postnatal depression and admissions to neonatal units , I’ve even seen it stabilise a mother’s parameters. There is new evidence emerging to show that in effect if Nimah had held her son straightaway he may not have been admitted to neonatal unit with breathing difficulties .
Skin to skin is human nature – we must tell women why it’s important not just ask
“would you like skin to skin contact ?”
We need to say
“If you hold your baby immediately against your skin and WE will provide help and support . As a mother you can instantly reduce the chance of your baby producing the stress hormone cortisol and this contact can and does have a positive nurturing effect that is invisible as it happening.
As health care professional we must practice evidence based medicine and skin to skin is evidence based . We are responsible for teaching why it matters – not just throwing it into a checklist, box ticking exercise .
The ‘Niamh’ I am talking about is in her late 70s – her children ages range from 38 to 48 years of age . Niamh recalls each birth , each separation but even more than that she remembers her feelings of despair at wanting to see touch and smell her babies but feeling like she couldn’t ask .
That to me puts it all into perspective .
If you’d like more evidence here is some of the latest publications
Pronurturance
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519215003558
Skin to skin at caesarean
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003519.pub3/pdf/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mcn.12128/full
I recommend you follow the following people and organisations so that you can converse with those who are champions for skin to skin contact
@JeniStevensS2S @CarolynHastie @HeartMummy @FWmaternitykhft @KathrynAshton1 @Natasha47 @Csectioninfocus @hannahdahlen @bloodtobaby @AAGBI
Please take a look at my “skin to skin FB page” for more resources
Thank you for reading #Keepgoing ❤️
With Love , Jenny ❤️
@JennyTheM©️ 
Unfortunately that is a common story I hear – however it is changing 😊
Jenny made a difference, YOU can make a difference too!
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