Cesarean section ,skin to skin

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There are new trends to encourage skin to skin contact right after an infant is stabilized to immediately start skin to skin contact on moms chest .Yesterday during a planned cesarean section I was the circulator in the OR ,my supervisor who was designated baby Transitioner .While the obstetrician was closing she placed the infant skin to skin ..and notified me she was going now .Has anyone ever been asked to circulate and have the dual role as transition nurse ? This was so unsafe

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Hello @Dformola

We moved your thread to the OB-GYN forum to elicit the best response.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

At my last facility we routinely did StS in the OR. The baby nurse would stay in the OR with the circulator, and then follow them out to PACU. She would help the circulator (now PACU nurse) get mom and baby settled, hooked up to monitors, etc, before leaving.

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I agree that this seems unsafe. If skin to skin is being done in the OR, there needs to be another nurse besides the circulator who is responsible for baby.

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Specializes in Labor and Delivery.

Skin to skin in the OR is great! But it is, and should be, the responsibility of the baby nurse to oversee that skin to skin time. As circulator, we have enough we have to do and physically are unable to watch over the skin to skin time! Doesn’t matter how close to the end of surgery they are. I agree, that was an unsafe situation. If your unit is to continue the practice of skin to skin in the OR, I think better practices and expectations should be in place.

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