Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Mar
14
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Animals Are Very Rough With Their Babies After They’re Born.”
“Animals are very rough with their babies after they’re born.” -L&D nurse to father that was upset with the rough treatment his newborn daughter was getting on the warmer.
There are 13 comments to this post.
First of all, baby animals can take a bit of ‘roughness’ – they’re about 20 times the size of our babies!! Animals rub their babies with their tongues or nudge them to stimulate their breathing. That’s rough? Rough is taking the baby away from its mother and making it (and the mother) cry. Why is it that my home birth babies didn’t cry except for that first call, but my hospital ones cried even when I got to hold them, finally?? Now who’s being rough?
My midwife had ME rub my baby’s back when my daughter was a bit ‘juicy’ right after birth, to help her breathe. But they never took her away from me!
PS Those warmers? After one birth I was at, they insisted that the baby needed to be on the warmer, because it warms the baby better than the mother could (um… evidence based care, anyone?). The one they put him under was missing that plastic covering that goes over the bulb, between the bulb and the baby. The baby’s skin was bright red – they were broiling him! So I put my hands between him and the bulb, and it hurt! But I kept them there until the mother managed to beg enough to get them to give the baby back to her.
Ok, I’ll stop rambling now 
[Reply]
Knitted in the Womb Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:14 am (Quote)
I’ve had my hands hurt when shielding a baby under a warmer too!
I think there are different “strengths” of warmers. One hospital in my area routinely takes baby away for an hour after the birth (I don’t think they warn moms of this, but it has happened to every one of my clients who birthed there–two they made up some medical-ly excuse to take the baby, but one there was absolutely nothing they could come up with so they admitted that it was just want they do “to warm the baby up because we have stronger warmers in the nursery.” Uuuggghhh.
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“Well, if we’re animals, I guess I’ll go ahead and birth alone in a field. Thanks for inspiring my freebirth Doc!” 
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My experience is that the vast majority of land mammals provide immediate stimulation by gently licking their young.
However, when a newborn animal is not breathing, mammals will use seemingly violent measures to stimulate their babies to breathe (eg the elephant video).
I think everyone can agree when a baby (human or otherwise) is born vigorous and breathing, very little stimulation if any is needed. And when a baby (human or otherwise) is not breathing after a brief period of perhaps 20-30 seconds, additional stimulation (such as vigorous rubbing with a towel for humans or perhaps kicking your young if you are an elephant) is appropriate.
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“You guys are animals?”
(BTW, that’s also untrue. I’m not sure which animals are rough with babies except for some forms of Homo Sapiens Nursus Hospitalis.)
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whatUneverknew Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 10:23 am whatUneverknew(Quote)
I saw a video of an elephant who kicked her baby around when it came out not breathing. She lifted it by the trunk with hers and jerked on it a bit. This was to stimulate it because it NEEDED it, and they don’t have hands to be gentle… so, yep, that nurse still sounds stupid.
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Seaason Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:16 pm Seaason(Quote)
ROFL @ “Homo Sapiens Nursus Hospitalis”
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