Few experiences in life can quite compare to the scale of giving birth. After being completely dependent on a mother’s nutrition and oxygen for months, a baby must learn to do so on its own, while mothers must get used to major changes in their bodies.
The importance of physical contact between a mother and her newborn is well documented: skin-to-skin contact is beneficial to both. As we recently reported, this mother ended up in a coma soon after the birth of her baby daughter. Hospital staff decided to place the newborn baby on the mother’s chest, and when she began to cry the mother woke up. Her baby’s cries and their closeness gave her the strength to wake up.
The picture below is thus understandably spreading like wildfire, and to all corners of the globe. It displays a young mother with her baby — laying just next to her in a very special kind of bed. I immediately fell in love with this idea when I saw it. Maternity ward rooms typically have separate little beds for newborns, which never stand too far from the mother. But this is just so much more perfect!
The picture emerged from an Australian couple who posted it on their Facebook page BellyBelly – Pregnancy, Birth & Parenting and the reaction has since come pouring in. The image has garnered close to 200,000 likes and over 100,000 shares.
How do you feel about the bed? I think it’s probably one of the smartest and most fantastic ideas I’ve seen in a while. Mothers and their newborns should always share their momentous first moments together, in the closest proximity possible, as this bed permits. Share and spread this great idea if you agree! 🙂
Would you like to see beds like this in all maternity hospitals? What a great help for c-section mammas too, but most of…
Posted by BellyBelly – Pregnancy, Birth & Parenting on Wednesday, June 3, 2015
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