“Recent research has shown that the first hours after childbirth is an unparalleled time for bonding between mother and baby,” said Dr. Ware Branch, Women and Newborns Clinical Program Medical Director.

Skin-to-skin contact is the practice of placing a stable newborn baby upright and chest down on the bare chest of their mother.

Benefits

  • Ideally, when done in the first hour after birth, a baby transitions better to being outside of their mother’s womb.
  • Being skin to skin with their mothers, babies begin life with greater respiratory and temperature stability, as well as stay calmer and cry less, and the benefits extend to mothers as well.
  • Many studies have shown that moms who have early skin-to-skin contact have increased maternal behaviors and higher rates of successful breastfeeding.

Skin-to-Skin for Cesarean Births

For many years, mothers giving birth at Intermountain hospitals have reaped the benefits of skin-to-skin contact for themselves and their babies following normal vaginal births. In 2015, teams within the Women and Newborns Clinical Program worked together to implement this best-practice protocol into operating rooms across Intermountain hospitals, extending the health and bonding opportunities of skin-to-skin contact to stable moms and babies following Cesarean deliveries.

Through the Clinical Program’s work, each member of the operating room became educated as to the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, and therefore, supported the necessary modifications to make this experience possible for patients. Across Intermountain, the number of mothers and babies participating in skin-to-skin contact following both vaginal and Cesarean deliveries has increased, which means more patients are reaping the benefits of the practice too.

Stephanie's Story

“I consider it a day of miracles,” Stephanie Partridge, a 33-year-old mother of five in Cedar Hills, Utah, said of the birth of her youngest son, Brett.

Just weeks into her fifth pregnancy, Stephanie discovered a lump in her breast. She discussed her concern with her doctor, thinking she had a clogged lactation duct. Tests revealed breast cancer.

“It took a few weeks to take everything in and to accept the fact that ‘I have cancer and I’m pregnant, and now I just need to move forward.’”

“Here she was fighting for her life and her baby’s life,” Michelle Wilcox, American Fork Hospital labor and delivery nurse, said about Stephanie.

When the day came, Michelle sat down with Stephanie and her husband to discuss the C-section delivery. Stephanie’s first four children were delivered via C-section, but Baby Brett would be the first of her children she’d be able to hold immediately after delivery.

“Skin-to-skin contact has become best practice at Intermountain because we’ve seen how the babies respond and the mothers respond,” Michelle said. “If it’s the right thing to do in a vaginal delivery, it’s probably the right thing to do in a C-section.”

“Just after [Brett] was born, I heard him cry and just seconds later, he was on my chest, and I could feel his face touching me,” Stephanie recalls. “I could feel him breathe…an opportunity I hadn’t had with my other babies right after they were born. It was perfect.”