TRANSCRIPT OF ANSWER

So some hospitals have recovery rooms, with baby in the recovery room as well. And if that’s the case, that’s wonderful because mom can now hear babies cry and even though she can’t typically sit right up after cesarean because she just had major abdominal surgery so she’s a little bit dizzy and loopy from those drugs, but she can hear the baby and that’s important too. And so dad, or support person, whoever is in that recovery room with baby, you are mom’s eyes and so she needs you to be those eyes. You can be taking pictures of your baby. If the recovery room is outside of the nursery, then dad, you can be taking pictures and then running them back to mom and showing mom those pictures and using your language to describe how beautiful your baby is. She needs you to be her eyes because she can’t at that point, she needs you to be her arms because her arms ache right now to hold her baby. So Dad, you can have that skin to skin bonding and that starts a wonderful bonding with your baby and sets up the baby’s gut and immune system so that he or she is experiencing, dad’s bacteria on his skin, which then helps promote a good immune system for baby. So Dad and support people are so important in the event that there’s a separation from mom and baby after the birth.