I feel a little differently to most of you as I think I was allowed to bond really well with James after he was born ~ not initially though, all I got was a flash of his bum & his willy ~ told it was a boy ~ & that was basically it until the next day. However once we climbed that hurdle I was encouraged to hold him skin to skin (kangaroo cuddles) when we did have him out of his incubator, talk to him, visit him in the nursery whenever I liked (I usually walked my ebm over the NICU & would sit & talk to him & stroke his hand for about 30mins then wander back to my bed). But yes often holds were limited as he was a 32weeker & needed to keep really warm & not get too tired, but when I was there I was allowed to change his nappy which was daunting enough considering the size of the butt I was trying to wrap.

While it wasn't the bonding session I probably would have liked to have had I feel that we have done pretty well. I feel incredibly close to my son & just love to hear him tell me how much he loves me & what a gorgeous mummy I am to him (he's almost 3.5yrs old now).

Alan ~ what you are suggesting sounds great, I guess as far as you guys (midwives) are concerned you have to think of the baby initially & the mums get forgotten a little, but in time I think you gain a perspective of why that is necessary (at least I did ~ I understood that everything that happened, or that I wasn't allowed to do was to give my son the best chance of a great start to get ahead) though it certainly does suck at the time when you can't hold your baby whenever you want to do it. I wish you every success with your project.