The golden hour immediately after birth is not a medical term, but a popular concept in recent years, intended to keep mothers and newborns together, especially now that the interest of hospitals and health care providers has shifted from cleaning and direct examination after birth to encouraging mothers to breastfeed.

But does this hour make a difference in the health of the newborn and the mother?

Have we overestimated the importance of this procedure?

Decades ago, hospitals followed the policy of separating mothers from newborns for standard medical procedures such as examinations, cleaning, and follow-up of the health status of the mother and the newborn, until a newer trend emerged calling for the need to keep the newborn next to its mother, coinciding with the talk about the concept of “skin contact” (Skin). to skin), which means placing the newborn on the mother's body (usually the chest) without clothes.

This is one of the practices recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a stimulating environment for breastfeeding, and has been endorsed by major medical groups from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the World Health Organization.

Hospitals' interest has shifted from direct postpartum screening to encouraging mothers to breastfeed (pixels)

Contact benefits

There is plenty of evidence for the benefits of mother-baby contact. Direct contact can help regulate blood glucose levels, reduce crying and reduce pain for mothers and babies, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

It may also help reduce a woman's risk of postpartum hemorrhage, which remains a leading cause of obstetric complications and death in the United States.

kangaroo care

While the above benefits extend to all infants, much of the initial skin-to-skin research has come from neonatal intensive care units, where experts have asserted that "kangaroo care" (where premature babies are placed on their parents' chests, not just the mother's) can To help improve children's heart rate and breathing, and to increase the weight of infants, especially the weak ones.

The concept of 'kangaroo care' has contributed to hospitals' changing policies for newborn care in the first hours of life, demonstrating that health institutions are doing everything they can to encourage breastfeeding.

Direct contact can help reduce crying and pain for mothers and babies (pixels).

Overestimating the golden hour

But of course, in many cases this is not possible, either because women are tired and need a break, or because mothers or their babies need immediate medical attention that prevents them from relaxing for an hour together.

Either way, when a mother loses that golden hour she feels disappointed and guilty sometimes, and she may think she has lost the irreplaceable, but the truth is that it is much more subtle than that;

There is also evidence that the first hour immediately after birth is not as magical as many believe.

A 2016 Cochrane review found no evidence that skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth was different from skin-to-skin contact after a baby was washed and examined.

At the same time, unrealistic expectations can put parents in a state of frustration. The problem is generalizing the benefits of the "golden hour";

Despite its importance, it created a state of exaggerated expectations, as mothers were told that the golden hour is your “reward,” so it became the duty of the mother to bear her pain immediately after birth to embrace the newborn and try to breastfeed him, although she can do the same task hours after birth. , to achieve the same benefits.

The idea of ​​a golden hour becomes a problem when mothers miss that "magic time," especially those who struggle to breastfeed, or who don't immediately feel connected to their newborn.

This can lead to deeper feelings of shame or resentment, exacerbating already prevalent mental health concerns during the postpartum period, with up to 20% of women experiencing postpartum anxiety, according to some estimates, while the CDC says On diseases that 12% suffer from postpartum depression.