Bonding with Dad Can Be a Lifesaver for Ukrainian Newborns
Oleh would have never predicted that he would one day perform a function that until recently was attributed to mothers. While his wife, Lyudmyla, was still under anesthesia after having given birth via Caesarean section in the Lutsk Maternity Hospital, their baby girl was put on his chest for a two-hour skin-to-skin contact session to keep her warm. Unlike adults, newborns need a room temperature of at least 25Cº.
“It is hard to put this into words. It was magnificent. The baby felt good. The only thing I could not do was breastfeed her,” explained Oleh while sharing his unforgettable memory.
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A new father warms his baby through skin-to-skin contact while his wife recovers from a Caesarean delivery
Photo Credit: Oleksandr Golubov |
Ukrainian maternity hospitals have had a history of problems with hypothermic babies. A 2003 needs assessment conducted in the city maternity hospitals of four pilot oblasts by the USAID-funded Mother and Infant Health Project (MIHP) showed that health care personnel didn’t pay attention to such phenomenon as newborn hypothermia. Most medical professionals held the view that if they and the mother felt comfortable in the delivery rooms then newborns were feeling the same.
Many of the maternities where MIHP now works had rates of hypothermia among newborns that ranged from 41% to 90% before conditions were changed. This hypothermia was caused by cold delivery rooms, a failure to maintain warm-chain techniques and separation of baby from mother right after birth. The practice of tightly swaddled babies in hospital clothes with room temperature less then 25Cº often also led to hypoglycemia, breathing difficulties, infections and feeding complications among newborns. For low- weight and pre-term babies, hypothermia was a severe life threatening factor and at MIHP introduced warm chain techniques and had mothers bring baby clothes from home, which dropped the rate of hypothermia among newborns in the Lutsk maternity hospital from 90% to 0%.
The initiation of mother and newborn skin-to-skin contact right after birth not only warmed the newborns, but allowed them to easily latch-on to the mother’s breast and obtain those first precious drops of the mother’s colostrums so vital for raising a baby’s immunity. When the mother is unable to warm the child, this function, as in Oleh’s case, falls to the father. It also helps the entire family begin developing those strong bonds that will keep them together.
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