Hurrah for you Becky!
        After being one of those obnoxious peds that hovered over the baby
post-delivery, "checking baby out", I got the other end of the stick and
found myself having to be quite insistent to get my baby back after she
passeed terminal meconium at delivery.  It was very upsetting, and set the
tone for a pretty constant struggle between myself (and my emissary to the
nursery - my husband) and the nursery staff.  They thought I was getting
"hyssterical"  worrying that they would switch my baby, while I was quite
convinced that an unsupervised baby is a  sitting duck for excessive
intervention.  Having been reformed by my personal experience, I would say
that just about every intervention in a vigorous newborn can wait.  In the
newborn who had a difficult labor, an assessment of vitals is appropriate.
That still means scrubbing the complete physical or any of the nursing
procedures at the bedside.  No hospital is going to allow you to move the
babby from the room without footprinting and banding, but I don't think it
needs to be the instant the baby is born.   I like your cobathing idea, if
it is feasible.  At any rate, I would have been much happier keeping my
vernix and blood covered little angel in my arms than having sat there,
alone and empty-handed for over an hour, waiting for my husband to manage to
extricate her from the bureaucratic arms of the nursery staff.
        Excuse me while I climb down from this rather high soapbox.  Hope
you find some baby friendly official procedures to bring to your hospital.
        Sincerely,              Giosi Di Meglio,
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