Based on decades of evidence, the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (World Health Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund, 2009) recommended that all healthy mothers and babies, regardless of feeding preference
and method of birth, have uninterrupted skin-toskin care beginning immediately after birth for at least an hour, and until after the first feeding, for breastfeeding women. Skin-to-skin care means placing dried, unclothed newborns on their mother’s
bare chest, with warmed light blankets or towels covering the newborn’s back. All routine procedures such as maternal and newborn assessments can take
place during skin-to-skin care or can be delayed until after the sensitive period immediately after birth (American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breastfeeding,
2012; American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists [ACOG] Committee on Obstetrics Practice, Committee on Health Care for Underserved, 2013; Sobel, Silvestre, Mantaring, Oliveros, & Nyunt-U, 2011). First impressions are important
and perhaps none more so than the newborn’s first moments of introduction to the world and the mother’s to her child.