Bonding happens over time, but it’s built on everyday moments – things like smiling at your baby, touching her, using loving words and responding to her needs. Bonding grows at different rates with different parents and babies. It’s a two-way process between you and your baby.
Mother’s Day at Saint Luke’s Hospital is always full of touching moments. This week, in honor of the holiday, the March of Dimes and Saint Luke’s Hospital are helping to make the day extra special for newborn intensive care unit (NICU) moms and families by providing support and personalized keepsake photos captured during skin-to-skin bonding.
To spend a little quality time with their teeny-tiny babies in the newborn intensive care unit, they shared a skin-to-skin bonding session while nearby photographers captured the precious moments as family keepsakes.
Also called “kangaroo care,” this intimate form of bonding involves holding a diapered baby against a bare chest. The practice is known to have various benefits for both the parent (such as stress reduction and increase in breast milk supply) and the newborn (such as weight gain, heart stabilization, and positive brain development), according to the March of Dimes.
Kangaroo care has documented benefits for both parent and baby. Benefits for baby include:
- Reduce discomfort and stress
- Reduce the chance of infection
- Help brain development
- Keep baby’s body warm
- Help stabilize heart rate
- Help baby gain weight
- Encourage more time in deep sleep
- Encourage successful breast feeding
Saint Luke’s hospitals deliver more than 6,000 babies every year. Saint Luke’s offers the most advanced expertise and services to expectant mothers and their babies. Saint Luke’s NICUs offer advanced care for premature babies and infants requiring critical care. We utilize a team of experts, including neonatologists, lactation consultants, nutritionists and nurses to care for moms on bed rest, as well as NICU and full-term babies, with care tailored to each baby’s unique needs.
