The Association Between Common LaborDrugs and Suckling When Skin-to-Skin Duringthe First Hour After Birth

October 13, 2015

A substantial body of research, including a recent Cochrane review (1), demonstrates that positioning a newborn skin-to-skin during the rst hour after birth has benecial effects on the health of the baby and the mother. The instinctive behavior pattern of norm al, unmedicated neonatal infan ts during the rst hour after birth while in continuous skin-to-skin contact with their mothers has been documented elsewhere and includes suckling as the eighth stage (2,3) in the progression of nine instinctive neonatal behaviors. Breastfeeding within the rst hour has been shown to have an inverse relationship with breastfeeding difculties (4) and neonatal mortality (5).