It is a common practice in maternities: in the seconds after birth, the newborn is raised in the torso of one of his parents. The mother, more frequently, but also the second father, especially in the case of a birth by caesarean section that requires that the parathorate remain in the operating room.
“The interest of the skin with the skin is real,” says BFMTV.com Marie de Coninck, midwife of the Maternity Hospital in Lens (Pas-de-Calais). “This allows the extension and a soft step of intrauterine life to extrauterine life. In the uterus, the baby is in the dark, it is contained, the noises are deaf.”
“Suddenly, it is driven in light, cold, noise. Skin to skin allows us to find the sensuality I knew in the mother’s belly.”
Specifically, the baby in the bed is placed in the sternum of the parents, the belly against the belly, with the legs bent, the head aside. “Like a frog,” Marie de Coninck specifies. The father is also without a shirt and “as in a loup,” not flat back. The baby’s head must be at the level of the parents’ chin, “within reach of the kiss on the forehead.”
Marie de Coninck still formulates a warning: “It should be verified that nothing bothers the breathing of the newborn.” It also recommends the use of a banner or a pregnancy belt (“not too tight”) so that the baby does not slide and fall, especially if the father falls asleep.
Father or mother, the attachment hormone
The practice is recommended by health authorities. In your archive on the reception of the newborn in the birth room, High health authority (ha) recommends that If certain parameters are satisfactory (present breathing, Frank Cry and normal tone) to “offer the mother to immediately place the skin of the newborn with the skin.”
In addition to calming the newborn, the skin with the skin strengthens the links with their parents. “On the skin to the skin with the baby, the father, and even if he is not the one who carried the child, secretes a hormone, oxytocin, which is the attachment hormone. And that even for a man.”
The practice contributes more widely to the construction of the child. “Young children need Portage and contact, some more than others,” said Sandra Brancato, pediatrician and member of the French outpatient pediatrics (AFPA).
“If attachment is not of good quality, it can have an impact on its neurological development,” he continues. “A child insecurity may be anxious, then knowing sleep, anxiety and even a certain delay in acquisitions.”
“Even a baby under oxygen”
From a purely medical point of view, skin with skin also allows a better support for the temperature of the newborn. “The baby will also regulate his sugar level, which is very important to avoid hypoglycemia,” adds the Marie de Coninck midwife. And if it is the mother who is the skin of the skin, it also allows contamination by germs by which she has already received antibodies.
This practice also promotes cardio-respiratory coordination. “In the skin to the skin, premature trees stabilize, evolve better, it is care in their own right,” says Marie de Coninck. Which confirms the pediatrician Sandra Brancato. “Even a low oxygen baby can be skin for the skin,” he adds.
“We are very often witnessing stabilization and improvement, we see it in neonatalogy.”
That is why the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends skin to skin for premature babies or those born with a weight too low. No previous passage in incubator.
“It’s fantastic”
The WHO ensures that the “kangaroo mother” method, that is, skin to the skin, offers “considerable advantages in terms of close contact from birth between a premature newborn and the person who deals with it ” “The research now shows that the implementation immediately after birth makes it possible to save many more lives, reduce infections and hypothermia, and improve breastfeeding,” the organization writes.
The skin to the skin can be practiced for babies that experience breathing difficulties at birth. Karen Edmond, a doctor in charge of the health of WHO newborns, advises to keep the baby on the skin with the skin “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even if you should be in intensive care.”
“The newborns bars, breathe better, need less oxygen,” says Sandra Brancato, from AFPA. And despite ventilatory support, some people begin to escape.
“They have less difficulties, they stabilize, they eat better. It’s fantastic.”
Skin to skin that can continue completely in the days and months after birth, either in maternity or when I return home. “While the baby and parents want it,” according to Sandra Brancato. “Limit crying, especially at night, and relieves the baby.” And at home too, “the second father has his place on the skin to the skin,” insists the pediatrician.
Source: BFM TV
