Newborns should stay on mother's skin

New mothers should resist efforts by hospital staff to 'whisk away' their babies just after birth. That's the advice of a leading midwife, Dr Mary Price, who says that mothers should bond skin-to-skin with their newborns for up to an hour.

This 'golden hour' can make a real difference, she says, to calming the baby and building up resistance to infections. It can also help with making breastfeeding easier.

'I would like midwives throughout the UK to learn the benefits of leaving the baby with its mother for much longer,' she says. 'It's important to have an immediate assessment of the baby's condition after birth - but an experienced midwife can do that simply by looking at them, without taking the child away.

'In our busy world we are used to having one experience and rushing onto the next one. But at birth the mother and child need to get to know one another and there needs to be time for the baby to settle. A lot of women maybe don't know about the importance of skin-to-skin contact. If you don't know about the benefits then why would you choose it?'

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