The benefits of skin to skin after birth
Holding your baby skin to skin, can happen immediately after birth or throughout their first few years of life. With your baby either naked, or in just their nappy, you can cuddle them against your bare skin, (or your partner can). It’s also a great way to give them their first bath!
What are the benefits of skin to skin?
Regulating temperature, breathing and heart rate.
Skin to skin is the easiest way to help regulate a baby's body temperature. Keeping your baby close means they mimic your breathing patterns and helps the transition from womb to world be as gentle as possible.
Establishing Breastfeeding
As you hold your baby skin to skin, you body produces TONS of othe hormone oxytocin. The role of oxytocin in breastfeeding is an important one, it enables the ‘let down reflex’- literally enabling your baby to get the milk out of the breast itself. Skin to skin also makes it easier for your baby to see, smell and seek out the breast, which in turn has been shown to increase the success rate of breastfeeding.
Maximising Newborn Neurodevelopment
As you hold your baby skin to skin at any stage of babyhood, it makes them feel safe, relaxed and develop secure attachments with you are your partner if you have one. The oxytocin produced by both mother and baby (or parent and baby) is a crucial hormone involved in the bonding process, and helps to fulfil a baby’s basic biological need. If at any stage of early parenthood you are finding it hard to read your baby’s cues, finding you feel distant from them or feel like you need to reconnect- skin to skin shoul dbe your first go to!
Developing the Microbiome
Living throughout our bodies, on our skin, in our gut, and everywhere else, are millions of GOOD microbes that help keep us healthy. In the hours following birth the microbiome of your baby begins to form. It’s influenced by everything from the method of birth to the environment they are born into to initiating breastfeeding. Holding your baby skin to skin means we are able to transfer a lot of the good bugs living on our skin to our babies, giving them a diverse microbiome, and potentially even improving their long term health.
Encouraging Healing
Whenever possible, you should be able to hold your baby skin to skin as soon as they are born. Occasionally, the benefits of separating mother and baby, for the sake of baby’s health may outweigh the benefits of immediate skin to skin. This may be to take a baby to a special care unit for example. Thankfully, the benefits of skin to skin are there for a long time after those initial few moments. If your baby is poorly and being looked after on NICU or Special care, you can adopt something called ‘kangaroo care’, meaning you and your baby spend a lot of tiny skin to skin, even whilst they are being treated. We know this improves outcomes for babies when used alongside medical care. Many of the benefits of skin to skin can be gained from Dads/partners too!