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3rd Street Building | 1st Floor

400 East Third Street, Duluth

To schedule, call 218.786.3468

EssentiaHealth.org/renew the world,” Crystal says of his birth last October 1. “I was able to talk to him first, and he knew my voice.”

Crystal recalls how she had spent time in the recovery room after her earlier births and was reunited with her babies in her hospital room.

Nick and family members would be waiting with each baby. “Everyone else would have seen and held my baby and I hadn’t got to know him yet,” she says. “I knew this time was my last time, and I’m so grateful that I got the ‘golden hour’.”

Nick describes Crystal as “being at peace” as she first held Jet. “We felt the closeness between all three of us,” he says. “It helped my identity. I felt like I belonged.”

Nick also appreciated that he didn’t feel torn between staying with Crystal in recovery or leaving with his new baby to make sure everything was all right with him.

“The ‘golden hour’ is the major transition time from inside life to outside life,” Dr. Rogotzke explains. “Birth is a big transition for babies, especially for those like Jet who are born by

C-section and haven’t been through labor. It’s an abrupt way to enter the world and skin-to-skin contact is very calming for both babies and mothers.”

Dr. Rogotzke explains that skin-to-skin contact helps mother and baby physically transition from the birth. The experience helps regulate their heart rates, breathing rate, and body temperatures.

During this transition, mothers and babies start bonding. “Babies smell their mothers and look at them,” Dr. Rogotzke says. “Babies and mothers totally tune into each other. Babies really settle down when they hear their mom’s and dad’s voices. They know those voices.”

Babies often want to begin breastfeeding during this time and mothers pick up their clues. The experience helps get them off to a good start, Dr. Rogotzke says.

Crystal says Jet picked up breastfeeding within five minutes after they settled into their hospital room. “With my other kids, it took two or three days,” she says. “Even though I breast- fed them, we had to teach each of them how.”

While she had given birth at St. Mary’s just three years ago, Crystal found completely renovated rooms and many other changes at the Birthplace. She felt pampered with the new amenities and with room service, which allowed her to order meals off a new menu and have them delivered when she felt like eating.

Nick spent the first night on a comfortable couch in Crystal’s hospital room but got ill so he went home. Their daughter Haley, then 13, came the second night. “I got to spend time with Jet without my brothers there,” says the teen, who now has four brothers. A nurse taught her how to swaddle Jet. “I gained more trust in her so I wasn’t afraid to make her my hands-on helper,” Crystal says.

Crystal most appreciated that she was always with Jet in the hours after his birth. They recovered together in her room, and he stayed there because the Birthplace no longer has a nursery. “I’d never held my baby right in my arms all the way to my hospital room,” she says. “I’m really thankful that I had it this time.” D