In this video, the founders of DONA (Doulas of North America) show the incredible impact of having doulas at births. (Viewer caution advised, actual childbirth scenes shown.) 

Here is a wonderful story of how skin-to-skin revived a pre-term baby who was pronounced dead. There's no substitute for a baby being close to his mama right after birth.

At the birth I attended a few days ago, I marveled at the Creator's foresight in designing the umbilical cord. If a baby were born without a cord connecting her to her mother, it would be so easy for the mother to hand her off to someone else and miss the vital bonding time of that first important hour. Instead God designed birth so that the baby has to stay very near the mother (barring modern immediate cord clamping). This vitally important early bonding lays the foundation for a strong lifelong relationship, a healthy newborn, and an emotionally satisfied mother. It helps alieviate postpartum depression in the mother, colonizes the infant with good bacteria from the mother's chest, and encourages the placenta to come (through nursing and little kicks on the mama's belly). Incredible design that it is, the umbillical cord is usually exactly long enough for the mother to hold her baby. What a wonderful God-given "leash."