Marsha says:
"However, I don't think it's as easy as moms being

"programmed" to do skin to skin or be physically close to their babies.

Moms don't necessarily operate on an instinctual basis."

You are right, Marsha, but babies do!! If you leave them alone to do it.

I so rarely see normal breastfeeding babies who just latch and feed.  IN our
hospital where there are 95% epidural rates, and all the sequella, many to
most babies have no idea what to do at the breast, for the first few days.
Even babies born in natural births often surprise me and just do not feed.

However, in our hospital, babies are allowed to be with their mothers for
the first 2 hours after birth, and then whisked away to be bathed/wiped
down, injected, warmed, dressed, examined,  etc

Last week, I was called in to deal with a "difficult couple." This couple
had a beautiful natural delivery, and after the birth refused to allow the
staff to take the baby.  As the staff became more aggressive, threatening
that if the baby did not go to the nursery, she might have brain damage
(???? talk about scare tactics) , the father became more adamant.  Of
course, they told me that he was really aggressive, to which I answered that
people should not have to become aggressive in order to keep their baby with
them.

I went to this mom and found her and baby still naked from the birth,
covered with a blanket, but obviously warmed by moms body.  It was about 6
hours after the birth.  I did convince them to put a diaper on the baby
before they were plastered with meconium which would require more invasive
washing procedures.  I did not have to discuss positioning or latch with
this mother.  As we were talking, the baby woke up and took the breast by
herself and latched perfectly even though she was at a totally different
angle than I would have recommended.  When I came in to check them later,
the baby roused a little and again latched by herself.......perfectly!!
Dianne W.  would have been so proud of her latch, and the mother did not
even realize how amazing this was.......to her it was absolutely natural.

I went back into the breastfeeding room where there were the usual 25
mothers struggling desperately with latch and positioning, and non-latching
babies and poor suckers, non-suckers, tongue thrusters, etc.  sigh.  Could
it actually be just that easy? Just keep them together and most babies will
latch without all the effort?

Do any of you work in hospitals where mothers and babies are kept together
skin to skin from birth and not disturbed? Please tell me how it
works.....our head nurse would love to make it happen in our hospital, but
the logistics are difficult.  We have 9000 births a year ( more than 800 a
month).

Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel



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