I have heard that the doctor slaps a newborns bottom to get them to expel the mucus from their mouth. Advice?
I don’t like this idea and I hope it isn’t common practice. I don’t want the first thing my newborn feels upon delivery to be a slap! Is this a myth/media thing? Did your doctor do this? What can I ask the doctor to do instead?
Oh thank goodness!
Read the book Birth Without Violence. It outlines many practices that are cruelly done or used to be done to a newborn. Many are outdated like this is for MOST doctors but certainly not all of them. Anyway, read the book and educated yourself then DON"T LET them do that stuff to your baby. There are compassionate alternatives to the things they used to do routinely. Like immediately making the baby cry which we now know is not better for them and can actually make their breathing more difficult.
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August 1st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
My doctor didn’t do that. Right as his head came out his nose and mouth was suctioned (body not even delivered yet). I think it is something mostly in the movies - kinda like the water breaking and mad rush to the hospital.
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August 1st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
They don’t anymore. Now they take a little air puffer thing and shoot it in the infants face around the nose. Just to get them started.
And only when they need to.
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August 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Never heard of that. My doctor gently touched (sort of a slap, but not like…a slap, if that makes sense.), to make sure my baby was alright, because when she was born… she didn’t make any noise what so ever. He was concerned there would be something in her lungs. Needless to say, when she went for her first bath, she definetley has a set of lungs on her!
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August 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
They don’t do that any more, they use a bulb and suction the mucous out of their nose and mouth.
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August 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
It was common practice in the 80’s. They don’t do that anymore. Now they just suction the mucus out with a suction bulb.
It used to be common practice for the doctor to hold the baby upside down and smack it’s bottom to get the mucus out and to get the baby to take it’s first breath.
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34 weeks with #2, I was held upside down and smacked when I was born in 80
August 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
if the babys not crying they do but if there already crying after suction then no
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August 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Read the book Birth Without Violence. It outlines many practices that are cruelly done or used to be done to a newborn. Many are outdated like this is for MOST doctors but certainly not all of them. Anyway, read the book and educated yourself then DON"T LET them do that stuff to your baby. There are compassionate alternatives to the things they used to do routinely. Like immediately making the baby cry which we now know is not better for them and can actually make their breathing more difficult.
References :