Immediately After Birth
- Skin to skin
- Clamp the umbilical cord
- Dry the baby
- Keep the baby warm with a hat and blankets
- Vitamin K
- Label the baby
- Measure the weight and length
Vitamin K
Babies are born with a deficiency of vitamin K. Vitamin K is an important part of normal blood clotting. Standard practice is to give all babies an intramuscular injection of vitamin K in the thigh shortly after birth. This can have the helpful side effect of stimulating the baby to cry, which helps expand the lungs. Vitamin K helps to prevent bleeding, particularly intracranial, umbilical stump and gastrointestinal bleeding. Alternatively, vitamin K can be given orally, however this takes longer to act and requires doses at birth, 7 days and 6 weeks.
Skin to Skin Contact
Skin to skin contact involves putting the baby against the mothers chest immediately after birth. This has several potential benefits:
- Helps warm baby
- Improves mother and baby interaction
- Calms the baby
- Improves breast feeding
Out of the Delivery Room
Once mum and the baby are out of the delivery room, there are a few things to consider:
- Initiate breast feeding or bottle feeding as soon as the baby is alert enough
- The first bath is usually delayed until this baby is warm and stable. It can wait days without any issues.
- Newborn examination within 72 hours
- Blood spot test
- Newborn hearing test
Blood Spot Screening
This is a screening test for 9 congenital conditions. It is taken on day 5 (day 8 at the latest) after consent from the parent. A heel prick is used to provide drops of blood. The screening card requires four separate drops. This screens for nine congenital conditions:
- Sickle cell disease
- Cystic fibrosis
- Congenital hypothyroidism
- Phenylketonuria
- Medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MCADD)
- Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD)
- Isovaleric acidaemia (IVA)
- Glutaric aciduria type 1 (GA1)
- Homocystin
Results take 6-8 weeks to come back.
Last updated January 2020