The abstract of an article written by Kristina J. Hung, a perinatal nurse at San Francisco Genreal Hospital and Trauma Center and Ocean Berg, a Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist also at the same hospital, is available for review here. The two set out to improve the rates at which early skin-to-skin-contact (STS) was initiated in healthy newborns and their mothers in the operating room and during recovery in order to increase the success of breastfeeding in this group. The project concluded “STS contact was feasible after cesarean and could be provided for healthy mothers and infants immediately after cesarean birth.” The project was able to increase the rate of early STS from 20% to 68%, and found that “healthy infants who experienced STS in the OR had lower rates of formula supplementation in the hospital (33%), compared to infants who experienced STS within 90 minutes but not in the OR (42%), and those who did not experience STS in the first 90 minutes of life (74%).” They call for perinatal and neonatal nurses to be the leaders in changes in the standard operating procedure after cesarean deliveries.
Cesarean Awareness Month 2021
April 3, 2021
2 Responses
I will say that having Skin to Skin and nursing in the OR 1 minute after my daughter was born has made all the difference in my breastfeeding success. With my son I didn’t even get to hold him or feed him for many hours and no matter what I tried he never latched correctly and nursing was a constant struggle. EVERY HEALTHY MOM AND BABY SHOOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO NURE IN THE OR!
I’m very grateful to the maternity ward nurses who wheeled my brand new girl all the way across the hospital into the ICU where I was stuck so that I could hold her and nurse her; even when the ICU docs and nurses didn’t appreciate their efforts because it interfered with my care, those maternity nurses knew that me holding my daughter skin to skin allowed for us to have a successful nursing connection.