Christine, You asked how babies breastfeed within one hour following a cesarean birth? In our hospital, the baby stays in the operating room usually held by the father or support person until mom is taken to the recovery room which is in the same area. The baby goes with the mom to the recovery room. The baby is then held by the mother and breastfed. If the nurse caring for the mother is unable to assist which happens often, the lactation consultant will assist. Typically, we may be supporting the baby while the L&D nurse is hooking the IV up to the pump, hanging the foley bag, etc. Moms usually are feeling fairly well immediately following surgery, but may have limited mobility due to the epidural. Often, we will remain for the entire feeding supporting the baby which means we may be with mom and baby for an hour or so. This allows mom and baby to have skin to skin contact and for that baby to have an initial colostrum feeding as well as conveying the message that mom's milk is essential for her baby. This also eliminates the necessity of supplementing that baby. The baby will then go to the triage nursery. If the baby's chemstrip is low, the triage nurse will page us to return the baby to mom for nursing. Before placing the baby skin to skin, note the temperature of mom's skin especially her arms. Occasionally, mom will be cool to the touch and in that case we will leave the baby in warm blankets (we have a blanket warmer in L&D). We still have the old triage nursery concept in our hospital, however are working to change that. Unquestionably, moms and babies should not be separated, however change is a slow process. Warmly, Georgia [log in to unmask] A persons a person, no matter how small. Dr. Seuss Whorton Hears a Who *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html