It is not very strange to hear that a mother could barely see her newborn baby until they were brought to her baby bath (and in some cases even with a drunk taken). Precisely the motto of the World Week of Respected Childbirth celebrated between May 12 and 18 is "Immediate and continuous contact, the key to a good start".
As MMar already told us, this week is special to become aware that childbirth is not a whim but a necessity of all the mothers in the world. It is also opportune to reflect on what direction the childbirth care is taking and to ask us some questions. Is childbirth respected as a natural and physiological fact that it is? Has childbirth been overly medicalized, is the mother's role in childbirth respected? Are the medical needs and emotions of both the mother and the baby respected?
Fortunately, more and more hospitals and midwives are joining to humanize the birth process. It is a slow road, but very little by little we know that the expansion rooms are modernized (some even with water pools), that the paritorios cease to be cold and impersonal and that mothers have more and more voice and vote in the Birth.
Another thing that is being emphasized but there is still a long way to go is in the importance of the first contact between mother and baby right after birth. They are "golden minutes" that cannot be lost. Skin-to-skin contact and intimacy between the two is essential for a better adaptation of the baby to the world and to promote breastfeeding from minute 1. About this, we can remember the wonderful video "crawl to breastfeed" about the power of human instinct
In the same way, the campaign Do not be separated! (which I have seen that it has a lot of publicity in health centers) promotes contact and non-separation of the baby and the mother during the first hours of life. All that remains is to warm up and put into practice. Because sharing with our children their first hours of life is a right of the mother and the baby that we must claim, is undoubtedly the best culmination of a respected birth.
