Family beds are best

There was a tiny little article in Saturday's Herald Sun titled 'Mum's bed best- doctor'. It is an awful title, but did discuss some interesting things, that you don't need a medical degree to know. Dr Nils Bergman, a renowned Pediatrician of the University of Cape Town has completed research that has shown babies should sleep in in their mother's bed until they are at least three years old. The study looked at two day old babies, and found they did not sleep as well in a cot as on their mothers' chests. The study found sleeping alone made it harder for the mother-baby dyad to bond, damaging the development of the brain, and leading to 'bad' behaviour when they grow up (I do not neccessarily agree with the 'bad behaviour' part, I imagine this is the Herald Sun's poor choice of words).

I remember watching a video while studying, featuring an interview with Bergman discussing Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). KMC is generally described as a mother and newborn being skin to skin, encouraging breastfeeding the intitiation of breastfeeding and supporting the new mother-baby bond. It is recognised as the optimal way (but unfortunately not always the standard way) to care for sick and premature neonates, far superior to incubator care (See here for a randomised control trial of skin to skin care compared to incubator care) . It is practised to varying degrees, depending on the setting, some neonatal units 'allow' token skin to skin time with the mother and baby, while others encourage KMC twenty four hours a day, with family members filling in when the mother is not present.

KMC with a premature bub

Incubator care

Back in my nursing days, I worked in a neonatal intensive care unit. Each family had skin to skin weekly (I wouldn't call it KMC, as it was only used when the baby was stable, and the nurse felt they had the time to facilitate the transfer in and out of the incubator, it was treated as an inconvenience, rather than the way things should be). I have witnessed many precious moments between mothers and babes, as they grew older and stronger, the skin to skin transitioned to nuzzling and suckling at the breast. The precious babes that didn't make it out of the nursery had uninterrupted KMC, their families trying to store a lifetime of memories.

When Charlotte was born, Wayne lifted her to my chest, where she stayed for the next two hours. She did not attach to my breast during that time (in fact, she didn't for the first twenty  four hours or so). This was all the more reason to keep her skin to skin. We spent the night skin to skin.



 When we came home from the hospital, besides the occasional cuddle with family, we spent our time skin to skin. When she was ten days old when we went to see a Lactation Consultant, she was horrified when I took my top off- whoops I had forgotten that skin to skin is not the norm!

My mother-in-law, a firm supporter of breastfeeding commented that she had seen premature babies skin to skin, but didn't know you could do it outside of the hospital. The research has been there for many years about KMC being optimal for sick and premature babies, I am just glad that the research has caught up with what families that are able to listen to their instincts have been doing since the beginning of time- skin to skin followed by co-sleeping in the family bed.