PeaceHealth strives for quick contact after C-section

Amber Baker had just one request before delivering her daughter via cesarean section: to hold her immediately after she was born.

When Baker had her son four years earlier, also via C-section, it was nearly an hour before she was able to hold her baby. She didn’t want the same thing to happen the second time around.

“In my very first appointment with Dr. (Heather) Weldon, I said if I have to have a C-section again, my only request is skin-to-skin in the (operating room),” Baker said.

Fortunately for Baker, PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center has made skin-to-skin contact immediately after C-section a priority — just as it is with vaginal births.

“This is standard of care for PeaceHealth,” said Weldon, a PeaceHealth OB/GYN. “Every patient, regardless of delivery, we want to do what’s best for mom and babes, and that’s skin-to-skin.”

Skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth has “loads of benefits,” Weldon said. The contact promotes mother-baby bonding, strengthens breast-feeding, makes mom more confident with breast-feeding and helps to stabilize the baby’s temperature more quickly, she said.

For years, doctors and nurses have made it a point to get baby on mom’s chest as soon as possible after vaginal deliveries. The same wasn’t always true for women delivering in operating rooms.

“I think it was just habit,” Weldon said. “I think we just forgot about that bonding aspect. We’re just coming full circle.”

Most often with C-sections, the doctor will hand the baby off to a nurse, who performs the pediatric assessment while the doctor is stitching and cleaning up mom. The father or other support person may get to hold the baby, but, typically, mom doesn’t get the baby until she’s in the recovery room.

But, Weldon said, as long as the baby doesn’t need any urgent care after birth, there’s no medical reason the baby can’t be on mom’s chest while the doctor finishes his or her work with mom. With that in mind, PeaceHealth Southwest in September launched an initiative to get all mothers and babies skin-to-skin within one hour.

Doing so after a C-section does require an extra step. Since the area is sterile, the doctor has to hand the baby to a nurse holding a sterile cloth, who then hands the baby to mom. With a vaginal birth, the doctor can place baby directly on mom’s chest.

A dedicated nurse stays next to mom and baby during the skin-to-skin time in the operating room, just to ensure mom is OK holding the baby. And if mom can’t do skin-to-skin, they encourage the support person to step in, Weldon said.

“It’s really just getting that physiological benefit of being warm up against a loved one,” she said.

‘It was awesome’

When Baker had a C-section with her son, Keaton, it was after hours of laboring. She doesn’t remember anything about the surgery or birth of her son. Her husband, Kody Baker, held Keaton, but she didn’t get to hold him until she was in the recovery room.

“Sure, Dad can hold the baby to your face, and you can see baby,” Baker said. “But I didn’t feel like his mom.”

That’s why Baker, who works as a labor and delivery nurse at PeaceHealth Southwest, wanted baby Cora on her chest as soon as possible. Cora was born Dec. 3, weighing 8 pounds, 5 ounces and measuring 20 1/2 inches long.

“I had her skin-to-skin with me within 5 minutes,” Baker said. “It was awesome.”

And, prior to delivering her daughter, Baker was adamant that other mothers had the same opportunity after cesarean sections.

“They feel like they’ve gotten the same experience as they would’ve gotten vaginally, even though they had a C-section,” Baker said.

That not only improves patient satisfaction, Baker said, but also the birth experience — something Baker can attest to.

“It didn’t feel like a surgery,” she said. “It felt like a birth.”