to feel sad that friend is happy to be separated from her newborn for first 3 nights

[Whoneedssleepanyway]

My friend is due to have DC2 in a few weeks and after a very bad labour resulting in some problems for her DS, she has booked into a private hospital for an elective CS.

I w her the other day and she said the hospital insist she stays in 3 nights and it is brilliant as they will take the baby to the nursery all night for her so she can sleep and will feed the baby for her as she doesn't intend to BF.

I didn't pass comment as this is up to her but I can't help feeling a bit sad that her baby won't be with its mum for the first 3 nights of its life but will be with some stranger, both my DDs slept with me (on my chest) for first 3 nights.

AIBU?

porcamiseria have you not heard of "Kangaroo care" for premature babies? It has been used very succesfully with premature babies.

its lovely , but the most I see seem to be in their little tanks

(based on eastenders and OBEM I concede )

You do realise the mother will be holding her child during the day, don't you.
I mean the baby will actually see it's mother, it's not being dumped in a cardboard box at the nurses station for 3 days.

But of course, your infinite wisdom and knowledge about what a baby wants is clearly far superior to anyone else's.

I'm sure you had a perfect birth experience, glued your baby to you for the first year of its life and as such, have perfect children.

Good for you.

"Why does a well baby need contact with his mother, but an unwell baby does not?"

All babies benefit from having prolonged skin to skin with their mothers. But for a baby who needs specialist medical input this is simply not possible sometimes.

What will happen to a baby that does not have contact with its mother?

here

and

here

and

here

There are many more studies on this subject.

From another study:

"The researchers' key findings were that skin-to-skin contact through the first month of life

Helped mothers maintain their choice to breastfeed
Increased mother's sensitivity to her baby

Reduced postpartum depression

Increased baby's alertness

Enhanced baby's responsiveness to their mother

The DVD features interviews with the researchers, mothers and fathers who participated in the study, and health care professionals commenting on the significance of skin-to-skin contact. It also shows video footage of mother-baby pairs interacting, nursing, and playing. It's remarkable how profoundly extended skin-to-skin influences outcomes for mothers, babies, and their developing relationships. "

And for those of you who are going to jump in and take issue with a) the research methodology of these studies - no, people don't swallow them whole and b) mother love is a very powerful thing and most mothers and babies will have no clear evidence of any detrimental effects that might have been caused by a separation in the days after birth. This is not the same as saying that these effects don't matter, or that they don't exist - because we can't perceive them.

Sorry, 15 pages in and I have to say it, I've been holding my tongue but, no

get a grip FFS

You are taking this to an extreme level of ridiculous by posting a million different studies, no one is really that bothered.

There are many babies that were, back in the day, taken into a nursery at night, myself included.

Do I remember it? Of course not.
Has it damaged me as a person or damaged my "bonding" with my mum?
Not in the slightest.

We don't all feel the need to ignore our own needs as soon as we give birth, it is not an honour not to sleep because no one else can look after your child. It's not an honour to be so exhausted you cannot function but it's ok because you have to look after the baby

And this ridiculous notion that we stop being people with human needs like sleep, recovery time from an operation etc is quite frankly laughable.

Givi g birth does not mean you lose yourself, and have no right to ask for help. That is surely not the message we should promote to new mothers, if you don't have your baby sleeping on you every night after a c section you are clearly inadequate?

Absolutley mind blowing

"I mean the baby will actually see it's mother, it's not being dumped in a cardboard box at the nurses station for 3 days."

9 hours away from its mother in 20 hours does not feel the same for a baby as it does for an adult. Time passes for children very differently because this is such a huge proportion of its lived experience. And yes - some babies are spending many hours in the first few days of life wrapped up in a plastic box on wheels in the corner of what is in effect a busy office.

"But of course, your infinite wisdom and knowledge about what a baby wants is clearly far superior to anyone else's."

Well - maybe if other people on this thread made more than the briefest passing reference to this issue from anything other than an adult point of view it would help, but people don't seem to have much to say about anything other than their own feelings as an adult. I'm quite open to hearing other input. Would welcome it actually. Especially if it was based on research findings about normal newborn physiology and cognitive development.

"I'm sure you had a perfect birth experience, glued your baby to you for the first year of its life and as such, have perfect children."

Well - unlike you and many others on this thread, I'm not in the business of trying to justify my choices when it comes to this issue. My first few days in hospital and at home with dd1 involved NO skin to skin contact. I didn't hold her for an hour after birth. The midwife cleaned her up, dressed her and shoved her in a cot over by the window while she fannied about trying to find someone to suture my gaping episiotomy. I then blacked out on the way up to the ward, developed a postnatal fever and spent a month in agony from crap breastfeeding, before returning to work when dd was 5 weeks old.

So no - this isn't all about me trying to lord it over everyone with my 'superior' postnatal experience, and TBH, you even making the suggestion - well, it's a bit schoolgirl isn't it?

Actually, the whole 'how very dare you imply you're a better mother than everybody else!' caterwauling that accompanies threads like this is very demoralising. You're a grown woman (I presume). Cease and desist with the cat-calling, purlease.

The vast maj of mothers are out of it and in shock the first few days.Birth is rarely how you plan it or it's perceived to be in the ideal,fluffy world of "studies" so it's a big fat raspberry from me to ridiculous studies suggesting how a mother interacts a year down the line is influenced by skin to skin.

My mother nearly dies in childbirth and didn't see me for days and she has always interacted beautifully.

Interestingly my twins didn't have skin to skin but dd did.I had a touch of PND after dd caused by life circumstances ie exhaustion(looking after 3 under 15 months).Skin to skin did SFA.God if it was that easy.

I did what your friend is doing and did not bond with ds for years. I don't know for fact it was because of this or not but i do think it might be.
with hindsight and not judgementally if I had a friend considering this i might say something to her.
I am not judging anyone and I had to do it for my own reasons but don't think it was right decision for ds in all honestly.
a few nights sleep does not make up for years of not bonding.

Oh and I can't rem anything before the age of 3,I can however rem the other 40 years of top rate mothering my mother has given me instead.

how do you know the baby isnt going to get skin to skin and a russian research really when the babies never had contact with mums after being born a bit extreme just to make a point, so all babies who havnt had continuous skin to skin for at least a week are damaged in some way

Oh it makes sense now.

You didn't get the perfect experience and now you feel guilty so you are projecting it onto everyone else.

I see.

And FWIW I think the mothers needs are very important also as if she is unable to cope, it's not going to make a good experience for the baby is it?

and this new born we are talking about is going to being formula fed so no need for baby to suckle,

I feel really sad for your friend too, that she was left so unsupported and traumatised by her first birth experience that she is so frightened of giving birth that she is seeking such an unnatural set up.

So many women in this country feel in a similar way after giving birth - an assisted birth/cs doesnt' have to be traumatic if women have the right care and support. Without that care and support for mothers then we are going to end up with more women like your friend.

I find the whole situation extremely sad indeed.

"You are taking this to an extreme level of ridiculous by posting a million different studies, no one is really that bothered."

I've posted a link to 4. In response to a direct question about how separation after birth might impact on development and on relationships.

Don't read them if they upset you or you're not interested. But someone did ask, so surely it's reasonable to post a response?

"There are many babies that were, back in the day, taken into a nursery at night, myself included.

Do I remember it? Of course not.
Has it damaged me as a person or damaged my "bonding" with my mum?
Not in the slightest."

Actually babies used to be held up by the ankles, slapped hard on their bottoms, have the vernix scrubbed off them and be very tightly swaddled. In the 1950's many of these babies would go home and be fed on watered down condensed milk, potty trained by being tied to their potty for hours a day, and to be routinely ignored by their mothers who were following the Truby King method which required them to limit cuddles and kisses, or risk 'ruining' their baby's character for life.

I can guarantee that most of these adults would say exactly the same as you. Does that mean these practices are harmless or acceptable? No. We know they harm babies. But human beings are complex and resilient and the harm will usually not be of a magnitude where it can be perceived and measured at the level of the individual.

"We don't all feel the need to ignore our own needs as soon as we give birth"

Bizarre. Really bizarre that your mind has made the jump from 'mothers and babies should be kept together after birth if possible' to 'mothers should get no care or rest after birth'. Actually you can have both. Mum and baby together and mum being cared for so she can rest, sleep and recover from the birth. I appreciate it would be easier for you to polarise this issue by insisting that 'keeping mum and baby together' means 'ignoring mum's need for support and care after the birth', but I don't think you should be allowed to get away with that - you are simply distorting the issue.

"And this ridiculous notion that we stop being people with human needs like sleep, recovery time from an operation etc is quite frankly laughable."

See above. It's your ridiculous assumptions about what constitutes effective postnatal care which are frankly laughable.

"Givi g birth does not mean you lose yourself, and have no right to ask for help. That is surely not the message we should promote to new mothers, if you don't have your baby sleeping on you every night after a c section you are clearly inadequate?"

Who says that all mothers should have their baby sleeping on them every single moment of every single day in the period immediately after birth? Oh hang on - you've just made that up, extrapolated it from a personal story someone told on this thread, and from comments I've made about the value of skin to skin and are huffing and bosom hoisting over it. When nobody has suggested that this is something that anyone 'should' be doing.

"Absolutley mind blowing"

I could not agree more. This thread is like being time-warped back to the 1950's.

Shag, all of those studies just bang on about skin to skin.

You can't possibly be suggesting that spending a few hours in a nursery precludes skin to skin contact for the other 18 hours of the day?

You seem to be under the misapprehension that mothers who choose to use a nursery for three nights can't possibly be having any skin to skin contact?

Really?

Really?

Skin to skin contact must be 24/7?

Ha.

The whole point of the advances in kangaroo care etc means that people do recognize that skin to skin has benefits. But unless you have a baby that's failing to control own body temperature, they can manage for a few hours, and it will have no effect on ability or desire in the mother to bf or anything else.

Your research pretty much teaches mothers to suck eggs.

Ta for that. I love a good bit of condescension of a morning.

"You didn't get the perfect experience and now you feel guilty so you are projecting it onto everyone else."

I'm not interested in a 'perfect experience'.

I'm interested in mothers and babies having optimal care at the point in their lives when they are profoundly vulnerable.

My poor care impacted on my health and my daughter's health at a very important time in our lives.

Fortunately things have changed since then so that skin to skin contact after birth at least is now usually a routine part of practice.

And this change has come about following the dissemination of research looking into how early postnatal practices can impact on breastfeeding rates and on postnatal life for mothers and for babies. Much of this research has looked at the experience of bonding between mothers and babies.

So yes, I do have a personal interest in this issue relating to my own experience. But that's reasonable isn't it? But my interest in this subject is about more than my own experience. It's related to the fact that I have a separate interest in the experience of early life for babies and in the way institutional care for new mothers is organised. So it's not just all about 'me, me, me'.

I hated having them whipped off to the nursery for completely unnecessary 'observation', which was hospital policy when three of them were born. The anxiety I felt meant I had no rest until they were back in my arms. I was allowed to keep two of them with me (one because she was born in the fancy hospital birthing centre room and one because she was born in a different hospital) and though I was battered physically, and tired to my bones, emotionally I felt whole and energised and I was able to cope.

If there were resources to support a mother keeping her baby by her side even after a CS (a dedicated nurse or aide for every mother for instance) then I suspect a lot of mothers would opt for doing that. The shame of it is that mothers are forced to choose in many cases - I agree with Worldgonecrazy there. And with Shagmund.

That's what I mean, youre projecting your poor experience onto everyone.

Not every one had a bad experience.

Therefore the lecture is unecessary.

And I beg you to just respond to my posts without c&p, I know what I wrote and everyone else can read it.

Shagmund - I respect that you feel strongly about this.
But, skin to skin is going to be very difficult, not to mention dangerous, for extended periods of time for a mother who is on strong painkillers.

I opted to try and keep my baby in my bed after the birth simply because leaning over and trying to get him out of the crib next to me was agonising on my CS stitches.
At one point in the night the nurse woke me looking very concerned. I'd slept so heavily, a druggie sleep, that my son had nearly fallen out of bed.

I am utterly envious of parents who can give birth naturally, suckle and nurse their baby instantly with only 'normal' amounts of discomfort. But my life couldn't follow a study and now I'm feeling guilty that I couldn't be an adequate new mum to my son. I guess I've already failed him...

And that was your choice math some people may not feel up to having the baby there at night after a c section.

That's ok. It's a personal choice. Not something to be flamed for surely?

I chose to have 3 natural deliveries with no drugs. It doesn't mean I made a better choice than soneone who chose an epidural. It's just different. And that is ok isn't it?

Ok, first study suggests skin to skin care for first two hours after birth nowhere in OP does it suggest baby won't have that. Baby in OP is going to the nursery at night. It could have had 10 hours of KMC by that point.

Next two studies are about the benefits of KMC. No-one has denied that. KMC doesn't mean baby skin to skin for 24 hours, so not sure why those links are relevant.

My question was about what effects DD would be suffering being that she didn't spend the night in a cot next to my bed for the first month of her life? In fact after the initial 2 hours i spent with her in recovery, i sisnt even get to see her for the next 7 hours because i was convulsing, so...?

If the posters so against the OPs 'friend' letting her newborn go into a dedicated nursery with dedicated staff the evening it is born could tell my why, with proper reasons why this shouldn't happen, I'd be very grateful. That way I could judge whether my SCBU imprisoned (for a month) DD is suffering any after affects.

I mean I carry around enough guilt that my perfect little girl wasn't able to stay safe inside me full term, that I almost died and left her motherless, that she remains an 'only' through fear, what's another few kicks when I'm down?

Shagmund, you speak such sense, but it"s falling on deaf ears...lot of guilt, and issues, around this subject I suspect. It is instinctive to me to put my baby first, not because I am a martyr, but because it feels natural....it makes me sad to think that some women are simply incapable.

To those who say that they were separated from their mothers at birth and it did them no harm...well, I would argue that it did, as you have grown into an adult who thinks a new baby doesn't need to be close to its mother after birth. When studies show that it clearly does.

What a lot of cold, selfish women there are on this thread....can none of you truly fathom that its not just about you?

Well I had my DTs in the nursery for everyone of the 6 nights following my section.

It never occured to me to do anything different.

And I did not hold them at all during the day either. They just slept in their little shared cot thing.

Why did I bother to have children I hear you asking yourself?