Episode 7: Newborn Series, Skin-to-Skin

Hello and welcome to Episode 7 of weekly free Brave Journey Birth Preparation videos. Today we're talking about:

Skin to Skin Immediately After Birth: It's so Important!

This is the the first in a series on newborn care and the first few hours after birth, starting this week with skin to skin. Watch the full video at bravejourney.com/blog (link in bio)
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In this newborn care series we're starting with skin to skin because it's my favorite :D Next week we'll talk about cord clamping!
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🌵 Skin to skin feels AMAZING after birthing a baby,
🌵 There's lots of solid data about benefits for infants and parents, both in the immediate the long term.
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Talk to your medical care provider to ask about baby-friendly practices at your birthing facility. If you're not happy with their answers, go shopping and find another birthing location.💃
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Full Transcript:

Hello and welcome. This is the next free weekly Brave Journey, birth preparation video , where I pick a topic about birth and postpartum, and I talk about it. Today we're starting a series on newborn care. Within the first couple of hours of birth there are a number of newborn procedures that it's important to know about.

I'm Cara Lee, I'm a birth doula and a childbirth educator and a birth preparation coach. And this is Brave Journey birth preparation program videos.

We're starting today with skin to skin, because it's my favorite to talk about. Skin to skin just feels fantastic after a baby's born. And there's a ton of really good data on the benefits of skin to skin for the baby and the birthing person.

One of the reasons I love talking about skin to skin is it's just one of the most fantastic, almost intoxicating feeling, wonderful, physical, and emotional things I've ever experienced. The feeling of the weight of the baby on my chest, their skin against my skin. Their smell, filling my head. It just, especially while in Laborland, right after you birth your baby, however you birth your baby, often, you're in an altered mind state, and it takes a while to come back into your body. And that feeling of the weight of the baby here is for me personally, what brought me back into my body.

And witnessing it as a birth doula every time, it's just my favorite. And I have to work really hard, not to project my own feelings about skin to skin, onto the people I'm working with. It's a constant practice as a birth doula- should not project my own feelings onto the people I'm working with.

It's, yeah, it's really important for the baby, to adjust and to transition. There's good data. We're going to talk about it in a second, but that baby is transitioning out of water. They've been in water. They're feeling air on their skin for the first time.

They've been receiving all the oxygen in their body, through their umbilical cord. And they're transitioning. We're going to talk about cord clamping next week, but they're transitioning from no longer receiving oxygen through the umbilical cord, but to receiving oxygen and processing it themselves through their own lungs. This transition is, um, frankly it's miraculous. It's just unbelievable every time I see it. And it's a lot for the baby to be going through. The birthing person is transitioning from having been in this super intense experience, whether it was laboring and birthing vaginally, or being helped to birth their baby via cesarean and surgery..

No matter what it was super, super intense, it was a really intense process. And now they are adjusting and transitioning to life with this newborn. And skin to skin, it's a really wonderful opportunity to do that. Um, baby and birthing mother can breathe each other in and adjust to their new reality, to together.

So, for some data, we'll talk about all the data supporting the beneficial impacts of skin to skin.

The U S Department of Health Services says that skin to skin should start immediately after birth and continue for at least one hour. The benefits are so clear that WHO and UNICEF both recommend that all healthy newborns experience immediate skin to skin with their mothers for at least one hour.

And here's why: skin to skin measurably increases breastfeeding rates, parent- infant bonding. This is all based on research. And the birthing person's overall satisfaction with the birth experience. Babies who receive skin to skin care, immediate skin to skin, that's right after birth, were six times more likely to be breastfeeding at six weeks to six months, so the benefits are long term.

If there isn't skin to skin, there's usually, data shows, a shorter duration of breastfeeding, more breast engorgement and pain at three days, more anxiety, and decreased satisfaction with the birth experience.

If the baby doesn't get skin to skin after birth, there's less effective suckling, they may have an unstable heart rate, breathing, blood sugar and oxygen levels, and babies are 12 times more likely to cry.

Skin is skin specifically after cesarean is is linked with a higher breastfeeding rate one to four months post-birth. So it's really positive.

A study looking at infants and parents one year post birth found that babies who were swaddled and separated from their parents after birth were more likely to be irritable and dysregulated one year later. So the effects have an impact for at least one year.

Skin to skin in the first hour is really a sensitive time for the birthing person and the baby, and really important. Can have a very positive impact on the infant and the birthing person. But unfortunately, according to evidence-based birth, rates of immediate skin in the skin and the United States are still really low, especially in some regions.

Definitely do some research on the birth location and the medical care provider you've selected, to ask about their skin to skin procedures, their immediate newborn care procedures. And if you don't like the answers you get: go shopping and find another medical care provider.

Skin to skin is beneficial for when you're breastfeeding, too. So during that first year, if you're breastfeeding, um, if breastfeeding challenges arise, lactation consultants will most often advise snuggling up with the baby and getting a ton of skin to skin time. Even if the baby's a few months old, it can help you both come back to your nursing rhythm. So skin to skin is, is really beneficial for infants and birthing people throughout the first year, really.

So a story. I'm going to tell a story about a birth I attended. I once attended a cesarean birth where the birthing person was birthing via cesarean due to an infection and an incredibly high body temperature. She was having a fever. When the baby was born, the baby was taken to the NICU for observation to make sure the baby didn't have the infection while the surgery was completed, the baby was being observed to see if their body temperature would come down after they were out of the mother's high temperature. Thankfully the baby didn't show any evidence of infection.

So during the rest of the surgery, though, they were separated. And I stayed with the birthing person, the other parent went with the baby to NICU, and then stayed with the baby.

Once the surgery was complete, we moved into the recovery room with the birthing person and, uh, her temperature was still super high and her heart rate was racing and she had IV antibiotics and a bunch of medication coming in through her IV trying to help lower her body temperature. And it just wasn't happening. So the nurse was taking ice packs and placing them around her body in sensitive areas. I was holding her hand, swabbing her forehead. Um, she was still kind of in and out of it, partly because of the fever, partly because of the exhaustion of, um, everything that she'd been through on her birth journey.

And, then the baby was brought in by the other parent and he began to unswaddle baby, and I helped the birthing person lower her, her hospital gown. And we got that baby skin to skin and the look on her face of relief and bliss and relaxation was so apparent. But what was also apparent was her heart rate lowered and steadied. And her body temperature began to stabilize and lower to a healthy level. And okay, maybe it was just that the antibiotics finally took effect and all the medications in the IV finally took effect, but I saw that immediate release on her face. And that baby just settled right in. And, um, they latched soon thereafter for their first latch and had a beautiful parent- child relationship, a very connected parent- child relationship in a very beautiful nursing relationship.

So their, their journey to birth like many journeys, there are twists and turns and surprises. And that skin to skin moment was something that I got to witness that will... Um, I'll never forget. I'll never forget that moment. When that baby was skin to skin.

📍 Thanks for listening. Uh, that's all I've got on skin to skin today.

Let me make sure I got everything. Yup. I hit on all the points. So that's it. That's that's this week's video, the first of the series on newborn care and those first few hours, post-birth.

I'd love to know what you think. What was your experience with skin to skin? What did it feel like for you? What are you expecting it to feel like as you go into birth? It's hard to imagine, but start to imagine some of these things and, um, Let me know. I love to hear from you.

Thank you for listening.

Oh, if you'd like to get these videos in your inbox, please go to bravejourney.com and give me your email address. I won't spam. I send these videos once a week and I'll also let you know when registration opens for my Brave Journey Birth Preparation Program, the full program I'm building online. Um, but other than that, I won't, I won't spam or sell your information. I don't even know how, but I know that you can and I won't, I will not sell your information.

So, thank you!