Keeping Your Baby Close After Birth

Written by Laura Schuerwegen

I could write about a million benefits of keeping your child close after birth, but I'll leave that up to the experts and stretch your imagination a little.

Imagine that you are an unborn child. You have been floating happily in lukewarm liquid for nine months now, you experienced taste through it. You felt vibrations and heard your mother speak, and you heard other, more muffled noises too. You sensed your mother's touch through the womb that hugs you. You have been really comfortable.

But right now, that womb, which is all you have know for all eternity, is getting a little tighter, you have little space left and it is getting harder to move. You may have engaged, you may not., anyway, you are ready for some change.

And so it happens, you start to feel hugged ever more tightly by that uterus, your home. Irregular at first, and short, but after a while, these sensations get more intense. Something is about to happen! You feel slightly pressed downward with every contraction. You are excited. You feel how your mother feels and you hear her voice, maybe she's a little frightened, should you be? Maybe she's excited too, and happy, so you feel happy too.

Let's just assume you are all well and she is indeed happy and excited to meet you - after all, she did wait nine months for this moment. Let's assume that this engaging thing and the contractions work well.

So you feel it's time to put in some effort of your own, after all, your mommy - who you have felt and heard and tasted all this time, but have yet to meet - is putting in so much effort.
So you twist and wriggle and turn. You feel really squeezed. Your head is a little sore, you feel like you can't take much of this for too long.

And then it happens...

[[[ I am sorry to take you out of the imaginative trip for a moment, but I just want to show you two possible scenarios and you pick the one you would like to have as the second half of this story ]]]

SCENARIO 1
The pressure on your head is relieved and you feel a rush of - what is this, it's fresh, cold even, and it smells so different - air on your face. A big human pulls you out rather rudely and holds you upside down. There are all these things around, and so many people and noises and smells and everything happens so quickly and you don't see well, but the light stings your eyes.

"Hey, why are they cutting off my lifeline? I like that, I played with it all this time! Don't take it away!"

You are being pulled away from the one smell and feel you knew to again another entirely different setting. They prick you and it hurts and they rub you down and put stuff in your eyes, it stings even more than the light! You are starting to feel very desperate, very helpless. Maybe this wasn't as exciting as you though it would be. Frankly, you wish you were back in that warm - albeit tight - uterus. You start to cry - "Hey what's this noise, it's loud and it hurts my ears, wait... it's me!" - you are kind of freaking out.

Someone else puts you on a cold metal thingy and starts measuring you. By this time you are tired and desperate.

But then they bring you over to the one creature you know. She looks kind of desperate too. And she's cold and tired, just as you are.

You want to look, you want to taste and smell. But you're still a little freaked out, scared, and very very tired. Will they come and take you away again?

SCENARIO 2
The pressure on your head is finally gone and you are in a lukewarm environment, just as you were in utero, but vast and less tasty, though it does taste and smells the same, just less pronounced. You open your eyes and see a beautiful face radiating love. You feel two strong but tired hands on your back.
 They pull you up - "Hey what is this? This smells great! I want to have a taste of this!!!" - and put you at the breast.

While you enjoy this liquid gold, you dare another glance. "Wow, mommy is really beautiful and look at how happy she is!"

You hear an emotion filled mutter, and look to the side. You've heard that voice before, but a lot more muffled. Hey, look at that, that's a totally different face than mommy's! A hand that belongs with the second face caresses your back and the face speaks gentle words to you, ever so softly. Mommy hums, and cries tears of joy.

"It was all worth it!" you think, as you doze off into a wonderful little slumber.

[[[ Take your time to wake up out of that soft dreamless sleep ]]]

Which one would you pick?

Laura Schuerwegen aka Mamapoekie is a Belgian mother, wife and writer who lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Find her thought on birthing, parenting and living on Authentic Parenting.