Mother-Baby Couplet Care

UMC’s Women’s Pavilion offers mother/baby couplet care, which means that mother and baby are cared for in the same room from the time baby is born, through recovery, and until they are ready to go home. Immediately after delivery, our RNs place baby on mother’s chest to initiate skin-to-skin contact. Skin-to-skin contact is the beginning step to couplet care. If for some reason, mom is unable to experience skin-to-skin contact, we strongly recommend “kangaroo care”, where father, grandmother or another family member steps in to give baby the warmth and “cuddle time” that is so beneficial.

Couplet care is a family-centered approach that promotes immediate bonding, educational opportunities and family satisfaction. Research has shown that by keeping mom and baby together, we are creating a stronger bond, building baby’s immunity and increasing success rates for breastfeeding.

Couplet care and skin-to-skin contact has shown to have numerous benefits including:
• Increases bonding between mothers and babies
• Initiates natural breast-feeding: newborn will look for the breast & self attach
• Signals the maternal brain to start lactation
• Colostrum is nature’s antidote: the immune system is primed, thus reducing infection
• Gives a glucose boost to the baby: less chance of hypoglycemia
• Decreases mother’s bleeding
• Keeps the baby warm
• Mother and baby begin “dance” (innate synchrony)

At UMC we understand the importance of mom and baby staying together. After labor, delivery and recovery, mother travels with baby in arms from Labor and Delivery to her postpartum suite on the Mother/Baby Unit. They are kept together at all times and never separated unless a complication arises or is medically necessary. So, if baby needs special screening such as a hearing test or glucose test, or simply needs to be cleaned up, our RNs do so at the mother’s bedside. Newborns are even visited by a pediatrician in mom’s room which allows mom and dad to be at baby’s side during his/her first check-up and never miss any special moments.