The practice of Skin-to-Skin Contact

Photo: Cass Gilbert

As human beings we desire and need human touch.  A hundred years ago ninety nine percent of babies died in orphanages before they were seven months old.  This wasn't due to lack of nutrition or infectious disease.  These babies died from a different type of deprivation: lack of touch.  

Luckily, today modern medicine has acknowledged this connection and care providers are encouraged to touch and hold babies.  Positioning babies on a bare chest triggers a hormonal cascade that delivers many advantages to baby. 

Benefits for Baby

1.) Accelerates Brain Development: Holding baby on your skin increases the development of essential neural pathways, which accelerate brain maturation.  

2.) Reduces Crying and Stress: Direct connection with your skin soothes baby's cortisol levels (stress hormone).  Pain levels are reduced as well.  As a result, babies who experience regular skin on skin often cry less and appear less agitated.

3.) Regulates Body Temperature: Infants are not born able to regulate their own body temperature.  A mother's body cares for baby through a process of thermoregulation.  Within minutes of being held skin to skin, the mother's breasts automatically adjust to cool the baby down or warm him up.

4.) Improves Quality of Sleep: Development of mature brain function in infants depends on the quality of their sleep cycling.  During skin on skin most infants fall asleep easily and go into a "quiet sleep" which is most beneficial for accelerating brain patterning and maturation.  

5.) Enhances Immune System: Mom's mature immune system passes antibodies through her skin and breast milk to baby.  

6.) Stimulates Digestion and Weight Gain: Skin on skin reduces cortisol and somatostatin in babies, allowing for better absorption and digestion of nutrients, while lessening gastrointestinal problems.  With a reduction of these hormones, their bodies preserve brown fat (fat they are born with), helping to maintain birth weight and encouraging better weight gain.

7.) Synchronizes Heart Rate and Breathing: 75% of sporadic breathing and slow heart rate episodes are reduced through skin on skin.

8) Encourages Breastfeeding Behavior: Studies have shown that newborns held skin on skin immediately after birth are TWICE ask likely to breastfeed within the first hour than swaddled newborns. 

As a baby grows and develops their need for for touch does not diminish.  Even though it may become challenging to keep your little one on your chest once they are mobile, there are still ways to encourage this healthy touch.  

A few ways to continue skin on skin and healthy touch as your child grows:

1.) Gentle massage before bed time

2.) Bathing together

3.) Prolonged cuddle sessions 

4.) Gentle rough play on the floor

5.) Holding hands

There are many ways to continue to touch and bond with your child.   Remember that even though they may not be tiny infants any more, that doesn't mean that they do not need that primal human connection.  

With so much love,

xoxo

Nancy