Surgical curtain gives C-section mums immediate contact with babies

Three nurses in the United States have invented a surgical curtain that allows women to hold their babies immediately after they have given birth via a caesarean.

Kimberly Jarrelle, Deborah Burbic and Jess Niccoli realised that it could take up to 30 minutes before new mums got the valuable skin-to-skin contact of those giving birth the traditional way.

The nurses, with a joint 50 years of labour experience in hospitals in Richmond, the state capital of Virginia, decided to act.

In C-section surgery a curtain is put up to ensure the area where doctors are working is kept sterile. The nurses devised a Skin to Skin C-section Drape, which has a built-in flap through which the baby can be passed before the flap is sealed quickly to prevent risk of infection while the mother is stitched.

The three nurses created 50 prototypes over the three years they spent developing the invention and formed a company called Clever Medical.

Their invention was promoted at the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses conference.

Ms Burbic said: ‘Women today want their birth the way they want it.  They get all down in the dumps because they don’t get to see their baby being born. This is one way we can break that barrier.’