Module 9 Overview: Birth, bonding, breastfeeding and attachment all affect babies and their relationships with their caregivers, and also their caregivers with them. This module offers a wealth of information about birth and breastfeeding from a pre- and perinatal psychology perspectives. Students will lean about skin-to-skin practices, the breast crawl and the importance of self attachment.

Students: Central to this module is the baby's natural process after birth, reinforced by the Baby Friendly movement. Babies will naturally crawl to the breast and latch, especially if they have had an unmedicated birth. Raylene Phillips, MD, has implemented the hour immediately after birth as a Sacred Hour where the mother-baby dyad are undisturbed. Nils Bergman, MD also makes the case for zero separation after birth. We include breastfeeding videos so you can see and support breastfeeding, and of course, the famous study: Delivery Self Attachment. This video is now a youtube video. Finally, Ray Castellino provides information about care for the newborn from a prenatal and perinatal perspective, and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett provides an interview of the role breastfeeding can take in healing trauma.

Our objective with the breastfeeding videos is for you to know about positions, how to help a mom feel comfortable, and about baby-led nursing. Just watch the first three videos in the Global Health Media project. You will want to own your own copy of Delivery Self Attachment, as it shows the baby's ability to self attach. We have many other videos in the Suggested Viewing in the module. Please contact us if you are confused: [email protected]. We will show the Kangaroo Mothercare videos, too. Just contact us.