Angel-Hello Baby

[Guest guest]

Hello Baby

by Sheila Kitzinger

 

Doctors used to claim that newborn babies could neither see nor hear,

and that they could not feel much. They were simply bundles of flesh,

and the more they screamed, the better, because it " opened their

lungs " . Even some midwives believed this. I remember Margaret Myles,

author of the highly respected textbook of midwifery, telling me that

it was ridiculous to dim the lights at birth because a baby could not

see anyway. Babies were blind.

 

Even mothers believed that their babies couldn't see until they were

six weeks old. They couldn't hear anything either, because there was

fluid inside the inner ear, so people could be as noisy as they

liked. It was common practice to handle babies roughly, put them

under a cold faucet, scrub them down, bundle them up, plunk them in

cribs, and leave them in a nursery with rows upon rows of screaming

babies.

 

Now we know that babies can see and can easily focus on an object

about nine inches away--just the right distance to see your shining

eyes and moving mouth when you hold the baby in your arms. They can

hear, too, and are exquisitely sensitive. Within minutes of birth

they look around and fix their eyes on the nearest interesting face.

They startle if they are subjected to loud noises, and they turn

towards the sound of the mother's voice, because they already know it

well, and heard it, along with all the thumps and rumblings of her

digestive system, the pulsing of her heart, music and other people's

voices who were near, when they were inside her body.

 

Some women who want to have a gentle birth are very disappointed when

their babies cry as they are born. They feel they must have done

something wrong to make the baby unhappy. But babies often cry for

about five minutes. It is their way of greeting life with

astonishment as they are tipped out of the uterus into a new world.

 

Babies who are heavily drugged by medication that the mother has

taken to relieve pain during labor may have been knocked out and just

whimper, or not cry at all, or on the other hand, they may cry until

exhausted. Research shows that babies who have received analgesic

drugs usually cry longer than babies of mothers who have given birth

without drugs.

 

A newborn baby who has not been dosed with medication is in an ideal

neuro-physiological state to start out on the exciting task of

getting to know the mother, and to explore and discover the breast,

take a good mouthful, and suckle energetically.

 

Newborn lambs and kittens, and all other mammal babies, can find the

mother's nipple. It used to be thought that human babies could not do

this. They had to be picked up and 'put to the breast'. But if you

wait patiently in a relaxed setting an undrugged baby will

spontaneously creep up to the breast. He starts to root, turning his

head from side to side, mouth open, chin nuzzling the mother's skin,

searching for the nipple. He uses hands as well as mouth. Immediately

after birth the hands are relaxed. But after a few minutes they start

to reach out and explore. The baby sucks his fingers, actually

massages the breast, then licks it, and, in his own time, latches on

and sucks. This can take up to an hour, and during this precious time

the baby should not be disturbed by being weighed, bathed or dressed.

 

A new relationship is unfolding. Two people are getting to know each

other.

 

This is adapted from Sheila's new book, Birth Your Way: Choosing

Birth at Home or in a Birth Center, to be published in March 2002 by

Dorling Kindersley.

 

http://www.mothering.com/11-0-0/html/11-6-0/hello-baby.shtml

 

Skye