The benefits of skin with skin after cesarean
Every father and mother wishes that the birth occurs naturally and that there is no complication during the delivery. However, sometimes the plans do not go well and doctors are forced to intervene, as is the case with cesareans. An operation with which specialists remove the baby from the woman's belly through an incision.
A situation that although it is not desirable, helps to prevent major complications. As in any surgical procedure, the state of the mother after this conception is not the best and the baby will also require certain care. From the Spanish Association of Pediatrics, AEP, recommend using the skin to take advantage of the benefits reported to both the woman and the newborn after the Caesarean section.
Benefits of skin with skin
From AEP it is emphasized that the benefits of skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the newborn are amply demonstrated:
- It favors the transition and the adaptation of the baby to live outside the uterus
- Improves the emotional bond between mother and child
- Encourages breastfeeding
- Increases the secretion of a hormone, oxytocin, which stimulates the exit of colostrum (the first milk produced by the breasts) and uterine contractions
The contact skin with precocious skin It is recommended in caesarean sections as long as the conditions of the mother and the baby allow it. The proposed procedure begins before entering the operating room and includes the adaptation of the operating room, so that there is enough space for the mother to receive the child during the intervention.
Skin-to-skin contact in cesarean sections is a beneficial and safe practice. A consensual protocol between the services involved favors its usual application, to achieve an environment similar to that which occurs after childbirth vaginal, but without forgetting that it is a surgical intervention. The involvement of the staff is essential.
Other benefits of skin with skin
Skin-to-skin contact is not only recommended in cases of cesarean, also in other deliveries. These are the benefits reported by the specialists:
1. It favors the establishment of the mother-child bond. After nine months together, at the moment of childbirth, mother and child establish for the first time an affective bond that marks their relationship to a certain extent in successive stages. Therefore, the best time to establish this link is right at the moment of birth, when mother and child have physical contact for the first time and initiate an attachment phase that will be present throughout childhood.
2. It facilitates breastfeeding. Placing the baby on the mother as soon as it is born favors a spontaneous and effective suction on the part of the newborn that facilitates breastfeeding. Skin-to-skin contact facilitates the rise of milk thanks to the stimulation that the baby exerts on the breast.
The baby, on its own, performs suction to the breast, thus facilitating the next feeding and thus presents a shorter time to start an effective breastfeeding than other babies located next to the mother but without physical contact, which later encounter more difficulties in the moment to make that first shot.
3. It allows the thermal regulation of the baby. The skin-to-skin contact maintains the baby's temperature. It thus fulfills the function of facilitating thermal regulation in such a way that the temperature of the newborn always remains in a safe range. This function means that newborns placed in skin-to-skin contact with their mother are found to have a significantly warmer body temperature than babies placed in a crib.
4. It decreases the time of the baby's crying. The newborn who has contact with his mother skin to skin as soon as he is born cries for less time than the one who is separated from his mother from the beginning. The crying appears in these occasions in the newborns as a form of complaint to return to their mother from which they have just separated.
5. Decrease maternal anxiety and baby stress. Labor is a time of stress for both the child and the mother. Being skin-to-skin greatly decreases that stress, allowing both of them to be more relaxed and to decrease the high levels of tension proper to the moment of delivery.
Damián Montero
