Susan writes:

"I think the important part is that babies who are not fed from the breast may be deprived of skin-to-skin and interaction.  Basically if you take the amount of time they should be feeding from the breast -- 20-50 minutes for 8-12 times per day -- -babies should have between 160 to 600 minutes a day of skin to skin contact with their mothers.  If you add this to the amount of time mothers need to pump of 80 - 200 minutes per day, you are looking at 240 - 800 minutes.

Just because the baby isn't on the breast doesn't mean that mothers should deprive their infants of the contact that they need."

I agree that skin to skin is essential for emotional and physical growth of an infant. I think that we need to be more aware of today's birth process and that A LOT of babies are unable to be held by the mother after birth due to extreme prematurity/illness. When this occurs we should not make mom/dad feel guilty for not being able to hold their babies. We should promote touching through the isolette and staying with baby as much as possible, but we can't say that the baby is being deprived due to birth situation.

When skin to skin is allowed,  then by all means we need to encourage it as much as possible, but if mother is unable to do so we should use pumping as a way for her to be close to her baby.

Julia IBCLC, RLC

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