Lovin' Lamaze

Did you know that right after normal, unmedicated childbirth if you lay the baby directly on the mother's bare stomach and give it time it will eventually crawl up to the breast and latch on? I watched a video on a study done and I watched a newborn baby literally push itself up its mother's belly until it found her nipple and began to eat. I am not kidding you! The baby rested and adjusted to its surroundings for about 20 minutes before doing so, but it was absolutely phenomenal! It isn't that the baby knows how to crawl at birth, the research study actually said it was a reflex. The baby is born knowing what to do and how to do it. I won't go on with too many details but there are several factors, such as the smell of a lubricant produced by the nipple that resembles the smell of amniotic fluid and thus draws the baby to it because it is most familiar, that aid in this very natural process. Yet, in hospitals the baby is often wisked away to be given shots, cleaned up, et cetera. I am not criticizing anyone who has had unnatural birth or not chosen to do it this way I just think it is incredible how God designed human beings! Think back to when there were no interventions or when women didn't have guides on how or what to do when it came to breast feeding etc. God gave babies the human instinct to find what they needed. I wish you could all see the videos I saw because they were captivating.

So I'm going to try it. Despite how much I may frustrate the nurses or get criticized, I am writing in my birth plan that no routine newborn procedures need to be done until after the baby has nursed. As long as my baby is breathing fine I'm going to lay it on my tummy and just enjoy it. I'm not going to pull it straight up to my breast and try and make it feed right away, I think I'm going to let it find its way. Go ahead, call me crazy, but even if I'm wrong it isn't like this is going to hurt my baby. Laying on my tummy is the closest it will be to its former home anyway--and I don't care if it's slimey or whatever--it will be my baby, my beautiful, healthy, happy, God made & hand crafted, instinct-given little perfect miracle.

Wow. We're going to be parents.