Dear Annelise,
   Just my thoughts on the "problem" with afternoon and evening births:
  When baby is born mid-morning or early enough in the afternoon, EVERYONE
wants to visit *that day* in the hospital (and you can only imagine what
entertaining guests in your room does to the immediate postpartum mom). My
first child was born at 10am, and I had visitors one hour later, and all
afternoon long.    Believe me, they would have been there even sooner, but
they lived an hour away!   This is particularly the case for the firstborn, I
think.

  When babes are born in the evening, there is a good chance that mom has been
awake for 36 or more hours, having labored all the day and perhaps all the
night previously.  She is exhausted, it is evening and she wants to sleep
after it all, but then she has this *baby* who needs her attention!!  If she
keeps the baby in arms, she is exhausted and may have trouble dealing with
early latch on, etc.  If she sends the baby to the nursery for a few hours so
she can get a bit of sleep, well, you KNOW what can happen there.  I found
that out when I had "sent" my preemie 35weeker to the nursery in the late
evening after my husband had gone home.  I was still hooked up to all kinds of
monitors, blood pressure cuff, and catheter, and was *very* scared about
having the baby in the room with me.  When baby showed up a few hours later,
she had a pacifier in her mouth, AND they had given her glucose in a bottle in
the nursery... talk about undermining the breastfeeding relationship!  Luckily
for me, I did what came naturally to me after that (and I was determined TO
breastfeed- not just to TRY to breastfeed), and totally ignored my
pediatrician's advice to only nurse one minute on the first day, two minutes
on the second day (this was 1993!).
  A baby born in the middle of the night probably doesn't have visitors until
the next day...

Sincerely,
Lisa Jones, LLLL in Wellington FL