Hi everyone my name is Ila Co I'm a registered Midwife and childbirth education instructor I practice Midwifery in a large Urban setting in Canada and I'm the mom to two lovely children so this is all familiar to me as a mom for the second time around in addition to my clinical practice I love educating families throughout the prenatal birth birth and postpartum periods in today's video we're going to talk about the benefits of breastfeeding or chestfeeding and skin to skin with baby let's get started there are some amazing benefits to breastfeeding or chestfeeding for both moms and babies breastfeeding or chestfeeding may reduce the risk of ovarian or breast cancer and may reduce the likelihood of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure pressure later in life breastfeeding may also help you shed that pregnancy weight a little bit sooner and return to your pre-pregnancy size more quickly there are tremendous benefits for babies as well breastfeeding May decrease the likelihood of some childhood cancers ear infections pneumonia flu respiratory infections gastrointestinal illnesses as ma sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS and eczema it really is a Kickstart to that baby's immune system skinto skin with your baby immediately after birth is so important we really try to have baby skin to skin for at least an hour and there are a handful of medical reasons why that might not happen if baby needs additional assistance with breathing if baby needs to go to the ncu or the Special Care Nursery or sometimes if Mom is unwell and unable to do immediate skin to- skin in those cases we offer skin to skin with the birth partner and then bring baby to mom as soon as is appropriate so why is skin to skin so important in the immediate postpartum having your baby snuggled up close can help Cal calm and soothe baby immediately after birth there's also a nice surge of endorphins for mum to help you feel well having your baby skin to skin releases oxytocin and prolactin which are two very important hormones to Kickstart the production of milk and establish that breastfeeding relationship right off the bat having baby skin to skin helps baby regulate their temperature their heart rate their breathing it helps stabilize their blood sugars and helps regulate their blood pressure as well it also kickstarts that microbiome so having baby on your skin transfers that good bacteria from you to baby and kickstarts that important microbiome process babies also have a heightened sense of smell every person has a unique scent signature that your baby will recognize and it helps them seek out the nipple and get started with that feeding process that brings us to the end of this video I hope you found the information useful we have a lot more in this series so please do check them out and join me next time take care and we'll see you soon