Early skin-to-skin contact has multiple benefits for the mother and the baby, so it must be ensured that, as long as the health conditions of both allow, do not separate. The General University Hospital of Elche (Alicante) has applied for the first time the contact technique "skin with mother-baby skin" after a C-section.
It was in the operating room itself, after the woman gave birth by caesarean section to two twins. Until now babies born in this way waited for the recovery of their mother accompanied by their parents, who already used this technique of father-baby contact, as is done in other hospitals.
The first mother who was able to cradle her twin children did so for more than an hour in the same operating room in which she had a caesarean section. The hospital's medical team promoted the "skin to skin" contact technique to favor the newborn's adaptation to life and strengthen his emotional ties with the mother.
And it is that this technique contributes to the reach or maintenance of normal temperature levels in the newborn and allows the baby to perceive the calming rhythm of the mother's heart and the sound of her voice, along with more benefits in the short and medium term.
We have already commented on another occasion that the humanization of births, also in the case of caesarean sections, should promote skin-to-skin contact and early breastfeeding. The contact with the mother and the father from the first moment is essential for the child's development.
The General University Hospital of Elche has among its priorities the launch of a series of initiatives and improvements for the promotion of humanization of childbirth and an increase in the quality of care for the newborn and his mother.
Among these initiatives is the proposal that future moms know the delivery room before giving birth, or the program of open doors of the Neonatology Unit so that parents can stay with their babies as long as they want.
We hope that caesarean section is not an impediment for mothers and their babies to be in skin-to-skin contact after birth, and at the same time we want the number of unnecessary caesarean sections, which can make this possibility less, given the risks involved, decrease.
