Editing Childbirth (section)

=== Role of males ===
{{See also|Men's role in childbirth}}

Both preterm and full term infants benefit from skin to skin contact, sometimes called [[kangaroo care]], immediately following birth and for the first few weeks of life. Some fathers have begun to hold their newborns skin to skin; the new baby is familiar with the father's voice and it is believed that contact with the father helps the infant to stabilise and promotes father to infant bonding. Looking at recent studies, a 2019 review found that the level of [[oxytocin]] was found to increase not only in mothers who had experienced early skin to skin attachment with their infants but in the fathers as well, suggesting a [[neurobiological]] connection.<ref name="Oxytocin and early parent-infant in"/> If the infant's mother had a caesarean birth, the father can hold their baby in skin-to-skin contact while the mother recovers from the anaesthetic.<ref name=fathers/>