Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Skin to Skin after a C-Section

Truthfully, one of the things that I hate most about c/sections at my hospital is that skin to skin doesn't happen until women are many hours postpartum. Sure, we chart "skin to skin with mother" and "skin to skin with significant other", but that is basically only saying that they were able to touch the only exposed part of the baby- the face. Should that even be charted? Heck no. I was trained to chart it, but as I am learning about what kind of nurse that I want to be, I am only charting it if they are truly put skin to skin- which never happens in the OR. I saw this link at Woman to Woman Childbirth Education that showed a baby put skin to skin IN THE OR and BREASTFEEDING! Check it out...



A lot of great breastfeeding information as well. But, really HOW can I make this happen at my hospital? I would love it if the babies could go to recovery with the moms instead of being wheeled off to the nursery. I would love it if babies could be skin to skin in the OR. Of course, all of this only if baby is doing well.

3 comments:

  1. How about "encouraging" mom to "refuse" to allow the baby to go to the nursery? This involves some discussion and coaching with mom beforehand......

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  2. Hmm. I have yet to have a mom refuse that. We used to have a nursery nurse work in LAD to admit babies so that they weren't separated, but during busy times we were still sending babies to the nursery. If one of the nurses delivers at my hospital you can bed that the baby will never go to the nursery though!

    There are a lot of things that the hospital is willing to do for nurses that it does not do for the general patient population, but I digress.

    Do you have moms keep their baby with them throughout the c/s and recovery?

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  3. This is something I really, really want to do when I have my next c-section! Any ideas on how to successfully broach the subject with the OB, anesthesiologist, nurses, etc?

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