Skin-to-Skin Contact: My Experiences

Gena Kirby of Progressive Parenting Network posted a short interview with Karen Strange, CPM and neonatal resuscitation educator, on the topic of skin-to-skin contact between mothers and newborns in the first moments and hour after birth.

 

Interview with Karen Strange

I have long been a believer and sharer of the benefits of skin-to-skin contact for both mother and baby. A few things that Ms. Strange said jumped out at me and reminded me of my own two births.

“The senses are meant for the optimal survival of our species.  When you interfere with that, it impacts us…in the way that we attach and care for our young. The most important aspect of (the sensory experience immediately after birth) is skin-to-skin.”

In the header image, that is me meeting my son Caleb immediately after his birth.  It is a moment that will forever remain firmly in my memory as I was supported to have a full sensory experience of him.  We had deep eye contact, and the smell and sound of each other as his warm wet little body relaxed on my chest.  It was a perfect moment that I wish every mother could experience after birth.

When my daughter Caitlyn was born two years later, we had a very different experience.  We both had some serious complications that led to her being born by cesarean while I was under general anaesthetic.  As a result, I did not get to meet her until she was about six hours old.

The first time I saw her, I had been wheeled into her treatment room on a gurney, as I could not move myself into a wheelchair yet, due to the pain from my surgery and previous illness.  I propped myself up on one elbow and reached out and felt her cool little belly.  She was under induced hypothermia for treatment of suspected brain injury, so she felt unnaturally cold and lifeless to me, and yet, the moment I touched her, all of my pain immediately vanished.  Reflecting back on that experience to me, I have marveled that if a simple touch with my palm had that effect on me (and it lasted for several hours afterwards), imagine what it can do for infants who have full body contact in the safest and most familiar place to them-their mother’s chest. It is the stuff of miracles.

“Whenever mother and baby go back together after birth (if they have been separated by circumstances), that is where the healing begins. It can occur an hour later, a few hours later, days..but what has to happen is: turning on the critical sensory needs of the brain, which lowers the cortisol levels, and the baby goes here (on the mother’s chest). And when the baby goes here, he will eventually feel safe.  ‘I made it. It’s over.'”

In the adjacent picture, my daughter was about 8 weeks old. She and I had had a very traumatic birth experience, and she had been extremely tense and clingy in the weeks after. Just before this picture was taken, we had spent about 45 minutes cuddling in a natural hot spring (in Moose Jaw, SK) and when we came out she just melted on my chest like a lump of butter. This was the first time I’d seen her totally relax.

To this day (as of writing this she is 2 years and 8 months old), her favourite place to relax is on my chest.  I imagine that because our birth experience left so much wanting, it may be some time before we are both fully healed into our birthright-level of attachment.  We will keep working on it, and I am so happy to have heard Karen Strange’s words on this subject.  When Caitlyn is there, I will be sure that I am open to hearing her and making sure she knows she is heard and understood.