HealthPartners - Preparing for childbirth

Rooming-In After birth, your baby may stay with you in your hospital room with one nurse to care for both of you. This is called rooming-in or rooming together. Having your baby close to you helps you both relax. Your baby learns to recognize your voice, smell, and heartbeat. Rooming-in is good for your baby’s health and also has health benefits for you. • Breastfeed sooner, longer, and more easily • Better body temperature and blood sugar levels • Cry less and you can soothe them more quickly • Lower levels of stress hormones Benefits for parents • Make breast milk faster and make more of it • Learn to recognize your baby’s feeding cues • Learn what baby’s cries mean (sleepy, hungry, stressed, etc.) • Get more rest and it’s easier to watch over your baby • Less likely to have “baby blues” or postpartum depression Benefits for babies

NEED TO KNOW

Rooming-in is so valuable that the AAP encourages parents to do it at home. Rooming-in until your baby is at least 6 months old — and preferably one year — is part of the AAP’s strategy for preventing SIDS.

86 Your Guide to Labor and Birth