Bonding with Your Baby
Bonding childbirth is the most natural thing you can do. Two precious hours right after birth in which you start creating a motherly bond with your baby. Skin to skin, heart to heart, eye to eye. Birth bonding boosts your baby’s immunity and helps to start lactation. How to approach it?
Bonding Childbirth
Start forming the strongest bond with your baby right after birth. It’s about feeling and smelling your baby, and about your baby feeling and smelling you. Sounds too primal? Childbirth is a lot about primal instincts. Embrace it.
It has been practiced for centuries as the most natural thing - simply lay your naked newborn on your naked body and let nature guide you. Most babies calm down once laid on their mother’s chest or belly. Typical newborn shrieking subsides, for obvious reasons - the baby feels their mother again, hears her heartbeat, to the rhythm of which they have been accustomed to for months since they developed their hearing.
Benefits of Birth Bonding
1. Birth Bonding as Lactation Starter
Newborns can be surprisingly physically apt during bonding. We’ve seen newborns who cannot hold their head up crawl all the way from their mom’s belly to her chest. Latching for the first time, boosting up lactation. Therefore, birth bonding is extremely beneficial for breastfeeding.
There’s no breast milk as yet; only so-called colostrum comes out at the moment of bonding. Which is the best immune booster you can get.
2. Birth Bonding as Immunity Booster
Another immunity booster when you practice bonding childbirth: Baby encounters bacteria on their mom’s body for the first time. Don’t worry, not all bacteria are bad! And sooner or later, your baby has to be exposed to them — you can’t keep your baby away from bacteria forever. This is the most natural way to do it.
3. Birth Bonding as Painkiller
There is nothing more satisfying than looking your baby in the eyes for the first time. Yes, there’s pathos oozing from this sentence - but we’re sure every mom would agree. Most dads, too, if they were present at birth.
Some hospitals are so progressive they might even let the father substitute for the mother in case she can’t perform the bonding ritual herself (typically after C-sections). We definitely support this practice - it lets you keep all the benefits of birth bonding (minus the lactation starter). It’s a lifetime experience, as most dads would agree.
With her lovely tiny newborn on your chest, the mom barely feels if her birth injuries are being treated. Birth bonding is the most effective painkiller you can get - natural and for free.
How to: Birth Bonding
A lot of hospitals know about birth bonding, they respect it and practice it. We recommend checking this in advance with your hospital of choice. Some hospitals would even perform all the initial examinations of your newborn while still on mom’s body — not disrupting the bonding process.
It’s always a good idea to have a birth plan when you go to the hospital. Don’t forget to include bonding childbirth there.
How long should you practice birth bonding? Most experts agree on at least 2 hours. Enjoy them to the max!
Bonding Blanket
Until recently, your newborn has been enjoying the warmth of your womb — it’s crucial to cover your baby during bonding so they don’t catch a cold right at the start. The ideal bonding baby blanket should be:
- soft and comfortable to touch,
- ideally from a natural fabric,
- and warm enough.
Bear in mind that such a newborn blanket will get dirty, bonding is performed right after childbirth, before you wash your baby for the first time. Red is the most practical colour of a bonding infant blanket. They say red colour reminds your baby of the inside of your uterus where they spent the last nine months. They also say newborns can’t distinguish colours properly. So we’re not really sure about the red colour — but we think it’s a good fit for the bonding birth.
Here’s the best blanket for newborn for us. It’s made of super soft bamboo rayon and warm wellsoft. Bamboo is comfortable and cuddly, wellsoft keeps your baby warm. This bamboo baby blanket comes in a vibrant red colour. Wash it at 60°C after using it as a bonding blanket and you can use it further as a pram blanket or any standard baby blanket.
Got you interested? Here’s a video in which we captured the beauty of bonding childbirth: