When my first son was born, I hadn't heard much about the benefits of skin to skin contact and so it wasn't something that I enquired about at the birth .
It was only afterwards, when I started to read parenting magazines and take part in parent forum chats, that I came to be aware of what skin to skin is and it's importance.
When my second child was born, I made sure I wrote in my birth notes that I wanted to have skin to skin contact with him as soon as possible - when a c section delivery takes place, often it can be a struggle to get skin to skin immediately as there are wires in the way and the mums position on the operating table can make things difficult - but reading up on natural c section deliveries meant I knew it was possible to accommodate my wishes, and I'm so glad.
Those first moments of skin to skin bonding with your child after 9 long months of pregnancy are some of the most special moments of your life.
WaterWipes have put together a very interesting video showing the benefits of skin to skin contact, which actually brought a tear to my eye - you can watch the video below:
I personally found the calming effects most prevalent with my third child - Sailor was the kind of baby who never wanted to be put down for a moment, and would seem to always be upset unless he was physically on me. But whenever I took the time to strip him down to his nappy and spend some time doing skin to skin with him, he would calm down immediately.
During that time we were having issues with Sailor's tongue tie, and I was expressing breast milk almost constantly to try to keep up with his needs - expressing exclusively proved difficult but a nurse advised me to try skin to skin before a pumping session to increase my milk production - I thought it sounded like a load of hippy nonsense but I was shocked to find that she was completely right - my production increased dramatically by spending 10 minutes having skin to skin with Sailor before pumping.
It shows that a womans body really is an amazing and quite magical thing.
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