One of my favorite topics is STS, have followed Gene C Anderson for years.  Cleaning a file under Attachment Mother-baby and found notes from a talk given in 1975 by Hales,D; Kennell, J; Klaus. M; Mata, L; Sosa, R & Urrutia, J at a conference of the Society for Pediatric Research. and an abstract was printed in their journal 9 (4) and a subsequent article was published in 1977. (Had to go did that one out too). They did a study in Guatemala, where babies were routinely taken to the nursery for 12 hours following birth.  The experimental moms got to hold their naked newborns on their bare chests in a private room for the first 45 minutes after birth.  Significant differences were noted when the regular moms and experimental moms got to hold their infants after the 12 hour nursery stay.  The final paragraph is so significant to me, "In Guatemala and other developing countries, breastfeeding and strong maternal attachment are crucial for the survival of most infants.  As the population has moved to the cities, the people have changed from home to hosp[ital deliveries.  Is the practice of immediately separating mothers and babies, which is now the procedure in hospitals in Guatemala and other developing countries, a factor in the decreasing incidence of breastfeeding and the high infant death rate due to malnutrition and infection?  Certainly keeping the mother and baby together  during the first hours after birth is not only a simple and time tested manuever (!) but may have far reaching benefits for large numbers of babies."
Kennell went on to do  a similiar  study in the US  with a one year follow-up.  Pat in SNJ


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