As part of Breastfeeding Celebration Week mums on Walsall Manor Hospital’s postnatal ward have been encouraged to enjoy skin to skin contact with their babies today – a skintoskinathon!

Hazel Brookes, Infant Feeding Specialist Midwife, said: “Skin to skin provides the perfect environment for a baby to transition to the outside world.

“We have been  focusing on the importance of this today during Breastfeeding Celebration Week and appreciating how wonderful it is. Due to current times we have been limited on the celebrations we can hold this week, however we thought this simple act of encouraging mothers and babies to be in skin to skin is perhaps the greatest celebration of all. Bringing it back to what should be at the centre of our work in Maternity – The Mother and Infant Dyad.”

Hazel added that mums were also invited to write down how skin to skin makes them feel and their comments were collected  and displayed around a rainbow on the ward.

She said: “The comfort  of the skin to skin and the hopeful rainbow image reminds us that although times are different and a little daunting now that the magic of closeness and skin to skin with your new baby is timeless and more important now than it has ever been.”