In previous sections of the site we have explored the physical and emotional needs and reactions of the woman and her partner during the different phases and stages of the labour and birth and for Caesareans. We will now explore your baby's possible reactions to their birth.
Imagine your child's perspective of labour, as it starts and builds. The contractions massaging them, stimulating their skin, almost nudging them along, letting them know it is time. It is their birthday, time for them to move from the snug confines of the uterus and negotiate their way down through their mother's stretchy pelvis and vaginal opening, progressively moving forward and down with each contraction to the outside world.
At times the journey may be slow, possibly lasting up to 10 to 24 hours (for 1st baby's). As your child leaves the womb, they enter the outside world and encounter a very different environment, one they usually intuitively adapt to quite quickly, as Mother Nature intended.
Imagine as your baby leaves the warmth and darkness of the uterus. A space that is confined but reassuring, where they can only spread their arms and legs only so far. It is a place where the temperature is constantly warm, where the sounds of their parents and everyday life are muffled and overridden by the resonance of their mother's breaths moving in and out of her lungs, and the continual drumming of her heat beating regularly above them. The baby has been comforted from the continual rhythmic rocking of their mother's movement and walking during the pregnancy, rocked within the soft, snug uterine walls and warm, cushioning amniotic fluid.
It sounds like an ideal place to be! However your baby's surroundings change as the labour progresses and will transform dramatically at the time of birth. What your baby sees, hears and senses at birth we can only imagine (unless you have experienced a vivid re-birthing!).