Honouring The Golden Hour After Birth
Postpartum haemorrhage is one of the most common fears projected onto pregnant women. The idea that our bodies could fail on us at any moment has been deeply ingrained into us since we were little girls. As women we’ve been programmed to not only distrust and resent our bodies, but also to fear them.
This idea is central within modern industrialised obstetrics, which positions itself as a saviour for women’s failing bodies, while at the same time creating the very problems it seeks to “correct”. In turn, many women choose to birth in hospitals or birth centres despite mounting evidence that they’re are actually at a higher risk of haemorrhage within these settings, largely due to the interventions, and “active management” that takes place.
Little attention is paid to the importance of honouring and respecting the “Golden Hour” after physiological birth, when it comes to actually preventing postpartum haemorrhage in the first place. A respectful, hands-off approach during this time period is critical for ensuring optimal levels of oxytocin, and other hormones necessary for adequate uterine contraction, and safe delivery of the placenta. Additionally, by maintaining the integrity of the hormonal matrix during and after birth and matching this with the genetic blueprints of both mother and baby, we create the conditions for a a more easeful initiation into breastfeeding and allow for the enactment of instinctive mothering behaviours. The hour after birth is a time that should be filled with love, ecstasy, awe and a profound and deeply intimate experience of bonding between mother and baby, not just biologically, but on all possible levels.
Ways of honouring the Golden Hour after an undisturbed, physiological birth…
Avoid ANY separation of you and your baby
You and your baby should not be separated under any circumstances. Weighing, measuring, and bathing can all wait until after the birth of the placenta and the initiation of breastfeeding. Even in the case of resuscitation, a baby should remain on or next to their mothers bodies and attached to their lifeline, with their umbilical cord intact.
Skin to skin is not just a nice idea – it’s essential!
Ensure skin to skin, dim lighting or darkness, warmth, and a calm, quiet environment. This will allow a woman’s stress hormone levels to gradually lower and for her enact her instinctive mothering behaviours, without feeling observed, stressed, distracted or self-conscious. This can look like a woman holding her baby to her breast, perhaps allowing her baby to latch, kissing and licking her baby, speaking calmly and lovingly, and sucking or positioning their baby to drain any excess fluids from their nose or mouth.
By keeping a baby on their mother, the oxytocin and beta-endorphin levels (which activate a woman’s pleasure and reward centres) are optimised, which leads to a lowering of fight or flight hormones, reducing her risk of haemorrhage. Skin to skin also serves to maintain the baby’s body temperature and reduce their own fight or flight hormones, allowing them to begin actively seeking out the breast.
Not hatting, patting, chatting (or texting)
The room should be filled with awe and reverence. No one should be touching your baby, or chatting within your earshot. You should feel as time has stood still and only you, your baby and inner circle are present. Avoiding have others on their phones, speaking to you directly, or obviously taking photos, will prevent you from being distracted and taken out of this precious moment. Also, by not allowing a hat to be put on your baby, you are ensuring that the hormonal, olfactory, and sensory exchange that is taking place with baby on your chest, is not disrupted. This exchange is critical for as easeful initiation of breastfeeding, bonding, and birth of the placenta.
Allow the cord to stop pulsing & hands off the placenta
There should be no mention of time pressure for your placenta or and tugging or pulling Instead time should feel as if it stands still and you should be left well alone to take in the awe and wonder of just giving birth and holding your baby to your chest for the first time. All that matters is you’re skin to skin with your baby, warm and have the space and privacy to fall in love with one another. When this time is undisturbed and unhurried, your fight or flight hormones (i.e. adrenaline and noradrenaline) begin to fall (this is why it is important to keep warm) and your oxytocin, and beta-endorphin levels rise and actually peak.
This beautifully, complex and purposeful hormonal orchestration gives you a sense of immense euphoria, and creates the blueprint for bonding and attachment. Your pleasure and reward centres are also activated, making you feel invincible and powerful beyond measure. At the same time as you’re feeling the greatest experience of love possible, the flood of oxytocin is also signalling your uterus to contract and shrink in size, allowing your placenta to shear away and for adequate clotting to occur in order to prevent any excess bleeding. By avoiding anything that interferes with or attempts to “speed up” this process, you are maintaining the integrity and inherent safety of the hormonal matrix, preventing haemorrhage or placental retention and thus allowing your body to release your placenta with it’s ready.
Additionally, by delaying cord clamping or even avoiding cutting the cord altogether (i.e. lotus birth), you are allowing as much as 35-50% of your baby’s circulating blood volume to be transferred across as they make their transition into extra-uterine life. While still inside the womb, the placenta plays the role of the lungs, liver, kidney’s and gut. Therefore, this final placental transfusion is essential for the optimal functioning of these newly perfused organs. This blood is especially rich in iron, which is has been associated with increased production of myelin in the brain and an overall optimisation of a baby’s cognitive, motor, social-emotional and behavioural development.
When the mother is bright eyed, radiant and staring adoringly at her baby, all else can wait. An atmosphere of reverence, patience, and trust in the body’s wisdom is all that is required. I believe it’s time to refocus the conversation on all the ways we can make birth and the postpartum period safer, by simply respecting and trusting birth itself.
Have you begun visualising your golden hour with your baby? How will you and your birth supports protect nature’s blueprint during this time?
“There is one simple, yet profound, birth truth: Birth is safe; Interference is risky!”
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Postpartum haemorrhage is one of the most common fears projected onto pregnant women. The idea that our bodies could fail on us at any moment has been deeply ingrained into us since we were little girls.