Skin to skin contact and breastfeeding

Hey there, I have been reading up about skin to skin contact and breastfeeding. Am checking out a heap of research articles about it... just out of interest, how much (if any) skin to skin contact did you have with your baby/s after birth, and how long did you end up breastfeeding for, both exclusively and all up.    This is just personal interest. just thought it might be interesting to see if anyone else thinks there's anything in it and find out other's experiences.


For me, i had pretty much none with Paris as they whisked her away pretty swiftly once i started bleeding.... i had a huge amount of feeding probs with her, and by 4 months she was having 3 quarters of her feeds from a bottle as there was no way she would take the breast alot of the time.   on the other hand, with Ayja, she was placed on my chest, direct skin to skin, with towels etc placed over her to keep her warm, and she stayed there for at least the first half hour until she had had her first feed. apart from a few little annoying probs now and then, it has been pretty good going with the breastfeeding and also with the bonding process betweeen us... which i felt was really important as that was lacking from my experience with Paris (sadly )Ayja is about 18 weeks now i think, something like that anyway.. and as yet has not had any supplementing although she will have to have a few bottles of expressed milk while i am on placement and cannot get to feed her. I think that time after birth i spent with her has made a difference. This may just be co-incidence since maybe i am "older and wiser" this time, who knows.

anyone that wants to add their experiences it would be really interesting to hear about them.

Edited by mum2paris

I had skin to skin contact with Sophie, not sure how long - not as long as I would have liked.  I feed her untill about 20 months when she weaned herself, she was down to 1-2 feeds a day at that stage though

With Paige Ihadskin contact right after birth and feed her can't remember how long, and with Blake he had a knot in his cord so they took him away for a few minutes to check him but when he was brought back he was placed straight on me and again feed him.
Paige I feed until she was 14 months and hopefully do the same with Blake!
Very interesting Janine,never thought about the difference that contact makes!
Karen.
had

I didn't have immediate skin to skin as Jack was a section baby. His dad had first cuddles. Then I got to cuddle for about an hour I think when he had his first feed too.

Breast feeding was a bit sore to start with with latching problems but once that was sorted it's been wonderful. I'm still breastfeeding at 9 months. I started one formula feed a couple of weeks ago before bedtime but that's purely because my monkey has refused anything but boob for most of his life so far so when he finally relented and took a bottle a week ago (much to my shock) I just had to keep it going. So as a result I'm heading out on my first night out since the day he was born. Hurrah! I feel I derserve it.

I don't remember how long I had skin to skin contact with Maya, but I do think now that I would have liked it to be longer. I had to wait a few minutes because she had to be suctioned, and then her cord was too short to reach me so I had to cut the cord before I could hold her properly.

I put her on the breast straight away, but I don't feel that she actually fed, or even really latched properly then. It was all too new, and now it's all a bit of a blur.

I breastfed her for 10 mths, she had a couple of bottles of formula around 2-3 weeks as I had severe mastitis and could only feed on one side, but after that refused to take a bottle and happily fed till I had to wean her for medical reasons at 10 mths.

Even now, nearly 2 years later, I regret being talked into stopping feeding. I realise that I gave her the best start by feeding for so long, but I feel like I was cheated out of making the decision to stop.

mmm i have read some things about something called Kangaroo care for premmies, same sort of principles, once baby is up to it of course.

I am comingup for my first proper night away from Ayja, and i dunno how i am going to be... expecially since she has had the flu for the past 2 days and is not really getting too much better, i really hope it goes in the next few days, poor mite, don't want to leave her when she's sick.