I recently had a patient who underwent a primary c/s for a medical reason, and guess what I did? Less than 10 minutes after the baby was born, once the NICU doc left the room, the baby went skin to skin with mom and stayed that way for the rest of the length of surgery!
One of the most amazing sights to behold. Mom absolutely LOVED it.
6 comments:
This is beyond all kinds of awesome. I wish this could set the tone for cesareans - even in an emergent situation, there is often time to at least make the mother feel part of the process, rather than talk over her as if she's invisible.
That would have been absolutely fantastic. :)
May I ask how that would work in a situation like mine? I was tired from 84 hours of induced labor before the c/s, and then when I had the spinal our heart rates dropped (our son's was 30, mine 16) so they ended up getting him out very quickly. Would it have even been possible to have him skin to skin? I remember being very disoriented and I'm not sure I could have held him. After the docs checked him out, they wrapped him up and my husband held him at my head while they stitched me up, which was nice but real skin to skin would have been great.
Amanda: if mom or baby (or both) are not stable enough to do skin to skin, it should not be done. I have had women with vomiting in the OR, or are very weak in their arms in the OR from a high spinal, so obviously, for safety sake, they do not do skin to skin in the OR. However, if I can hold baby cheek to cheek with mom, and mom is ok with it, then I try to do that. Either I'm holding baby, or if her partner is present in the OR, he/she holds the baby up against mom. Not ideal, I know, but I definitely work with both mom and baby's medical status at that time.
I also care for both mom and baby in the recovery/PACU area. By then, mom is usually stable enough to hold/cuddle baby, so skin to skin continues or occurs in there as well.
May I say that I envy your job and all the wonderful moments to which you are witness every day. Thank you for your blog and your ability to write with such beauty.
I did another skin to skin in the OR just the other day :-) Love it!
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