Bonding

Bonding means ‘forming a bond’. It refers to the mother’s first contact with her baby immediately after birth and is an important process in forming a strong emotional bond that lasts a lifetime. Skin-to-skin contact helps the baby adapt to life after birth, regulates their body temperature, reduces stress levels and helps to establish breastfeeding.

Every mother begins to build a bond with her baby during pregnancy, but this bond only fully develops immediately after the birth. Bonding is the process of forming an initial, immediate bond between the mother and her newborn baby. Full bonding, i.e. skin-to-skin contact, is best achieved when a full-term baby is born and adapts well after birth. The optimal duration of contact is 2 hours after birth. In the event of any deviations from the norm (prematurity, difficult postnatal adaptation, etc.), contact with the parents must be adapted to the baby’s current state of health. We facilitate bonding following both spontaneous delivery and caesarean section. Immediately after birth, the baby is placed on the mother’s abdomen or chest, gently dried and covered with a warm blanket. If the baby adapts normally, they may remain in this position for the full two hours after birth, or until the end of the operation. For all births, we routinely perform delayed cord clamping; once the cord has stopped pulsating, the father may cut it. Bonding can also be carried out with the baby’s father if required.