#1
Skin-to-skin contact
Skin contact has been understood and accepted by more and more people in recent years through the publicity of major authoritative institutions, the compulsory enforcement of baby-friendly hospitals and the promotion of the majority of popular science authors.
Our public account has also written several articles about skin contact:
Click to read: Review | Wonderful skin contact
Click to read: Warm crying | special period, male doctors after 90 to do kangaroo care for premature babies
But I found that sometimes when the breast milk guide tells the mother to "do more skin contact", there is a kind of paleness and weakness like saying "drink more hot water" in the face of sick people, although there is nothing wrong in principle, but the mother does not have any feeling of being supported, and even trying to do skin contact with the baby does not feel any happiness and sweetness.
Sometimes when the breast milk guide says this sentence, it is completely bottomless, perhaps just out of the established behavior pattern of daily work, or maybe just to comfort and consult the mother.
In other words, not only breastfeeding mothers, but sometimes the breast milk guidance itself is not quite sure what this skin contact is for.
In breastfeeding knowledge, skin-to-skin contact can be said to be a panacea for feeding problems.
Skin-to-skin contact can bring more benefits than an incubator, and skin-to-skin contact is a fast track for babies to return to feeding, and it is also a familiar "one-size-fits-all formula". But why skin-to-skin contact? How?
#2
The first thing to understand is what skin contact represents.
Skin-to-skin contact is actually the mutual need of the two "people" of mother and baby, and the need to "be together" is an intimate interaction between these two people.
During pregnancy, the mother is the baby's home, and the uterus is the baby's bedroom. After childbirth, the baby needs a familiar and intimate home like the womb, and under the leadership of the mother's familiar family, gradually know and become familiar with the new world outside the womb.
After childbirth, the baby lies naked on the mother's body, close to the mother, can feel the same heartbeat in the womb, hear the mother's voice, smell the mother's smell.
Mom's breasts have the same smell as amniotic fluid, and babies feel these familiar stimuli and will be more at ease and focused on the first step of independently seeking milk and eating breast milk.
The baby comes from the womb to the mother's arms, the home is still the mother, the home inside and outside the womb is seamlessly switched, for the baby, the mother is the safe harbor for the new world.
Skin to skin, can stimulate the mother's love hormone - oxytocin better secretion, feel the sweetness and happiness of the new mother, more willing to breastfeed frequently, to take care of the baby and pay.
The baby needs to stick to the mother, the mother also needs to stick to the baby, and the two need to stick together after giving birth to gradually adapt to life outside the womb.
It is precisely because of these instinctive maternal and infant needs each other that skin-to-skin contact is widely recommended and widely used in feeding consultations, but is skin-to-skin contact only so?
N0
The skin contact between the mother and the baby is not a superficial behavior of one or two times, but a stable and continuous process of companionship and interaction.
The process of skin-to-skin together stimulates the mother's instincts, which is conducive to the continuous maintenance of the maternal and infant emotional link established during pregnancy, and the postpartum mother can observe the child more keenly and find the needs of the child, give a timely and sufficient response and satisfaction, and smoothly open the road of intimate parenting. This is also the normal interaction mode of the initial parent-child attachment relationship.
The baby needs to be completely dependent on the external caregiver, the most familiar caregiver during pregnancy, the mother, to survive better, he lives in a world full of joy and uneasiness, he is controlled by fervent love-hate feelings, constantly oscillating in the experience of completeness and disintegration, and sometimes even afraid of his own survival.
When the baby's entire body skin is close to the mother, embraced by the mother's gentle arms, eating the mother's breasts, listening to the mother's voice, and being soothed in the gentle care of the mother's eyes and heart, the baby will feel the feeling of being loved and will feel "I am important".
From the mother, the baby slowly develops a trusting mother-baby intimate relationship and establishes a safe maternal and infant attachment.
If babies rarely get these good feelings, they will be reinforced with an inner feeling that their needs are not important, that their feelings are not seen, and that they feel that they are bad.
For example, a baby who has just been fed is still restless and crying, which can upset or upset the mother. The mother may be in a hurry, trying everything to stop crying, and cannot accept the baby's emotions.
If the baby cries the mother thinks of what way to stop crying, can not accept that crying is actually a normal expression of emotions, the baby's feelings are often ignored, it is likely because the emotional link between the mother and the baby has been externally threatened and damaged.
At this time, the surface skin contact is only "to do (skin contact) and do", which is easy to mislead many breastfeeding confused mothers, a moment of impatience, in order to solve the problem as soon as possible, more pursuit of superficial direct doing (do), rather than being (companionship).
At this time, the baby will have a feeling of not being understood, if the baby often does not feel that the mother can understand their real needs and understand themselves, the baby may refuse to eat the mother's breast.
#3
Behind the problems are all relationships.
When a mother is confronted with a baby who does not want to eat breast milk and just uses the formula of skin contact to give the baby, it does not really understand the baby, nor does she see the relationship between the baby and the mother.
To see what state the mother and the baby are in every day, whether the baby's basic needs have been seen and fully met in time, in order to truly use skin contact, but also to bring real results.
For example, a two-month-old baby refuses to breastfeed, directly applies the formula of skin contact, and finds that the baby desperately resists, and the nipple is stuffed into the mouth not only does not suck, but cries louder.
Is it the wrong skin contact at this time? Need to give him tongue pressure training? Is it that the mother does not have enough milk? No, it is irrational not to look at the mother-infant state and directly deny skin contact, and more "tricks" are irrational. In detail, it may be that the mother is rarely with the baby in addition to breastfeeding, it may be that the baby eats and sleeps in the arms of the sister-in-law/aunt/grandmother, it may be that the baby is required to feed on time, and it may even be in the unconscious sleep training.
If you think that directly using "skin contact" = "obediently eating breasts", it is just another tool to control the baby. And what is wrong is not skin contact, what is wrong is the understanding of skin contact.
For example, a one-year-old baby refuses to breast, and the analysis finds that because the mother is sick and temporarily separated from the baby, the baby is separated from the mother during the mother's hospitalization, which may accumulate a lot of complex emotions, thoughts, anger, anger, etc., and the same mother also carries thoughts, guilt and physical exhaustion.
So can we directly apply the universal formula, "skin contact with the baby"? Of course not.
A one-year-old baby has a strong ability to understand, and the interaction between him and his mother is not only skin-to-skin contact, but also the emotions between mother and baby and the relationship between love and conflict brought about by this time.
Can I use skin contact? Sure, but it's hard to practice naked like a baby, and parent-child bathing is another very good form of skin contact for this month.
A crying baby, whether he wants to drink milk or want attention or companionship, will try his best to express it - crying.
Even if the mother has only recently fed it, she can still feed it when the baby is not crying but wants to eat. In this way, it not only satisfies the baby's physical needs, but also makes the baby feel that he is understood mentally.
If you can continue to have such interactions that are centered on your baby's needs and satisfied in a timely manner, your baby will trust this intimate relationship.
These feelings of the baby are slowly established "spiritual skin" to wrap their own inner feelings, just like our skin wraps around the various organs of the body, and slowly the baby will develop its own inner tolerance ability, which is also crucial for the baby's sustainable development.
Therefore, to understand skin-to-skin contact, we must understand the true biological instinct and the relationship between mother and baby.
Intimate mother-child relationship, can be the early postpartum baby naked and mother skin kiss, want to eat the mother's milk can eat at any time, after eating there is a mother around to continue to accompany; can be a slight light, the mother to the baby to bathe to do touch to change clothes and change diapers; can be the mother holding the baby in the arms to sleep; can be the baby is older, fell and bumped the pain, the mother gives a warm hug, eat a few bites of neinei; can be even if one year old, two years old, you can still nest in the mother's arms to eat neinei, Sleep with your mother and mother, breastfeed at night, and go out to hide in your mother's arms and watch the world.
Every breastfeeding, every time the care of the and fart, the baby's daily needs are met in time, often feel seen, is an intimate mother-baby interaction.
First understand the feelings of the mother and baby as "people", in order to feel the current state of each real mother and baby, so as to flexibly use it, live in the truth, and accept in understanding.
People who see us as real people do not routine or formula, do not distort or denigrate every knowledge.
Article guidance correction: Ma Lei, Zhang Ting
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