Family-friendly c-section

Firefly1220

I'm so excited. Last pregnancy I knew I'd have to have a c-section from the start, and in researching them I discovered the idea of natural or family-friendly c-sections. Essentially, this includes things like delivering the baby slightly slower from the incision, delaying cord clamping for a minute or so, and allowing immediate skin-to-skin contact and nursing in the OR. You can see some of these ideas here if you're interested - www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5RIcaK98Yg or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613254/.

Anyway, I brought it up to my old OB, who was wonderful but incredibly old-school. She looked at me like I had two heads. For this pregnancy, I found out she retired, and my new OB is totally down with these things (assuming everything goes well). I'm so excited to know that I might be the second person to hold my baby and first for an extended period of time - last time it was hard watching her cry so hard in the incubator while they cleaned her up and weighed her before I even got to touch her

cmytutu

That sounds great.  Yay for you.  Good Luck!!!

DonnaMartinGraduates

That's great she's on board with the idea!! I'm hoping for the same thing! My OB was fine with it for my last delivery, but he came 5 weeks early and had breathing problems from the start so all the natural c-section plans I had went out the window. I didn't get to hold him until he was three days old I'd really like to have a positive c/s experience this time around.

jennifer0504

While I did not do delayed cord clamping, my hospital's procedure for all c sections is to try for immediate skin to skin in the OR which was wonderful. Of course they warn you that it is major surgery and things can change quickly. 

My hospital also has the recovery room immediately following the surgery where my husband and I got to be with our baby and a baby nurse assigned to us to help get breastfeeding going. It was such a wonderful experience and much different from my first CS where I didn't see the baby again until I was wheeled out of recovery.  

byrne15

my 2nd c-section was "family centered".  it was amazing!  dh got to cut the cord and i was holding him within a minute or 2 of him being born.  DS#1 and my mom even got to watch the section from a viewing room.

rm2013

jennifer0504:

My hospital also has the recovery room immediately following the surgery where my husband and I got to be with our baby and a baby nurse assigned to us to help get breastfeeding going. .  

same here.. I didn't know all hospitals didn't do it this way. I was able to breastfeed 15 minutes after the surgery, and the three of us bonded until it was time to wheel me to my room.

Firefly1220

Ours was like that too, and was wonderful - baby was never away from us, etc. But we definitely did not get skin to skin in the OR and didn't get delayed cord clamping.