Discover the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, what the WHO recommends, and why this first hour can matter so much.
The first few minutes after birth are one of the greatest physiological transitions a human being experiences.
Inside the womb, the baby has been living in a warm, protected and regulated environment. Oxygen has been delivered through the placenta, their temperature has remained stable, and they have been in constant contact with the maternal body.
Then, in an instant, everything changes.
Suddenly, the baby needs to breathe through their lungs, adapt their circulation, maintain their body temperature, and cope with a world of light, sounds, smells, touch and movement.
For us, as adults, change can be anticipated, understood and put into context.
For a newborn, it cannot.
A newborn does not yet have the resources to interpret what is happening, anticipate what comes next, or independently regulate the full intensity of this experience.
And this is perhaps where we need to change the way we think about the first moments after birth.
Because the baby leaves the mother’s body, but does not stop needing a body to help them regulate.
Birth does not suddenly transform a dependent baby into an autonomous human being.
It changes the context in which that dependence takes place.
While we, as adults, have the resources to interpret, anticipate, understand and regulate our experience of change, a newborn does not.
Researchers who study early development and the effects of skin-to-skin contact, such as Ruth Feldman and Nils Bergman, have contributed to an important way of understanding this: for a newborn, the mother is not simply someone who is emotionally available. The maternal body provides a fundamental biological context for the baby’s adaptation to life outside the womb.
The maternal body provides sensory and physiological input that can support the newborn’s regulation.
So when we separate a newborn from their mother during the first hour of life — even for a few minutes, to weigh, measure or perform procedures that can often wait — perhaps it is worth asking ourselves:
What are we giving priority to?
To the physiology of that baby, who has just undergone one of the greatest transformations of their existence?
Or to the schedule of a professional and a system that, at times, struggles to adapt to the evidence?
This is not about saying that all procedures are unnecessary or should never be carried out.
It is about asking whether they really need to happen at that particular moment, and whether they need to happen away from the mother, when her presence itself can contribute to the baby’s regulation.
The World Health Organization recommends immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact after birth, when mother and baby are clinically stable, as part of essential newborn care.
Within its Early Essential Newborn Care recommendations, the WHO recommends maintaining this contact for at least 90 minutes, while also supporting early initiation of breastfeeding.
The so-called golden hour, therefore, is not simply an optional ritual or a preference of certain professionals. Nor is it merely an “emotionally beautiful” moment.
Skin-to-skin contact is associated with benefits such as:
- Better maintenance of body temperature;
- Greater cardiorespiratory stability;
- Reduced crying;
- Better physiological adaptation to life outside the womb;
- A greater likelihood of early initiation of breastfeeding;
- A greater likelihood of favourable breastfeeding outcomes in the following weeks;
- Early exposure to microorganisms from the mother’s skin, which contributes to the newborn’s colonisation.
Perhaps there is a paradox here that deserves our attention.
We, adults and supposedly mature human beings, with the ability to understand, anticipate and regulate our responses, seem to struggle to accompany and adapt to change — even when that change is supported by the best available evidence.
And at the same time, we expect a newborn, who has no choice in the matter, to immediately adapt to a succession of changes for which their nervous system is still developing.
And so a question emerges that I find difficult to ignore:
Could our relationship with change also begin to be shaped by the way we are welcomed when everything is, for the first time, different and new?
We do not know whether there is a direct relationship between the sensory experience of birth and the way each person will later respond to change.
It would be an extrapolation to claim that the way we are born determines our future relationship with uncertainty or the unknown.
But we do know that early experiences contribute to the organisation of the brain and of stress and regulatory systems during a period of extraordinary plasticity.
And perhaps this distinction is important: we do not need to claim that we know exactly what the future consequences of an experience will be in order to recognise that the way we welcome a newborn matters.
Perhaps this is enough to encourage us to look at birth with greater awareness — and with the courage to ask for coherence between what the evidence tells us and what we do in practice.
Because what may seem to us like simply “getting things done” can be, for a newborn, an experience of extraordinary intensity.
Perhaps we can make “new” less synonymous with threat.
Perhaps the unknown can be challenging without being frightening.
Perhaps change can happen without the body having to experience it as an aggression.
A gentle transition is not about being perfect, nor about avoiding change.
It is about being present while change happens.
It is about offering, at the moment when everything changes, a safe place from which that baby can begin to discover the world.
Are you preparing for the birth of your baby?
You do not need to know everything.
But you can arrive at birth knowing your options, knowing which questions you want to ask, and having greater clarity about what matters to you and your baby.
If you would like to prepare for birth and the postpartum period with information, awareness and individualised support, book a conversation with me.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace individualised medical advice. Decisions regarding care during and after birth should always take into account the clinical circumstances of both mother and baby.
