During your pregnancy, you create the environment in which your baby lives. Stress hormones and pleasure hormones cross over the placenta and affect the fetus. As early as 5 months into the pregnancy, your child can begin to hear sounds and even begin to recognize your voice. Flavors of the food you eat change the taste of the amniotic fluid that your baby swallows. Scientists, who study the unborn child, tell us how important it is for the mother to create a loving environment for her unborn baby. This will help the baby develop to his greatest potential.

Similarly, during the actual birth process, too much stress and anxiety create what is called the “fight or flight” response. When stress levels get too high, oxygen is drawn away from the uterus and redirected to the hands and feet. This will cause the uterus to work less effectively and can cause less oxygen to get to the baby. Also, the level of stress hormones to the baby will increase. Too much stress, even in an unmedicated birth can negatively impact early lactation performance. A mother, along with her birth companion, can develop many skills to reduce stress. Every mother can learn deep relaxation to create and maintain a favorable birthing environment for herself and her baby.

Doctors use medication to reduce stress and anxiety in the birthing mother. Both narcotics and anesthetics cross the placenta. While they may not have a permanent effect on the baby, their impact is apparent in the early hours and days after the birth. Reducing the overall amount of stress and medication you receive during birth may help your baby be more responsive when it comes time to breastfeed: however, even with a lot of preparation some mothers have a difficult delivery and interventions are necessary.

Pitocin, forceps, or vacuum extractions may be unavoidable in these situations and may result in breastfeeding getting off to a slow start. A Swedish study published in Lancet not only shows that medication can effect an infants suck but that separating the mother and baby immediately after delivery will also have an impact on his suck. The research of Neonatologist, Dr. Marshall Klaus, also demonstrates how we treat the mother during and after the birth process should be examined to find ways to enhance this early postpartum time together, not sabotage it. He strongly supports uninterrupted contact of the mother and infant until after the baby has latched on to the breast. Initial examination of the infant, barring medical complications, should occur while the infant is lying on the mother. He suggests we look at hospital routines that do not encourage this and begin to change those policies.

Eye drops, vitamin K injections, weight checks and other interventions that postpone maternal/child bonding can occur at a later time. Further studies also tell us that infants placed skin to skin on their mother will warm to the correct body temperature as effectively as they  would separated from the mother and placed under warming lights.