Breast Crawl at Birth - See the Breast Crawl (online clip)

[rose]

Ok, thought I would *bump* this so others can get the chance to look. I am looking forward to trying this in a months time. Just doing my birth plan now and am plcing it in there. I also mentioned it in booking in at hospital and the mw was keen for us to try.

Being my last and only just finding out about this, I really want this experience. I would love to hear some more stories of those who have done this.

Thanks

[dust]

i have also been thinking about doing the crawl, DH loved the idea..
hope u get to experience it rose!

[sunshine_sieben]

I had a beautiful natural waterbirth with DD but BFing ended up a bit of a chalenge in the first couple of weeks (still going strong at 13 months, though). With my next one, I definitely want to give the breast crawl a go. It just looks so right. I always thought it weird that attachment should be so difficult, awkward an downright uncomfortable. Curious to see how it feels when bubs does all the work.
Sasa

[MummyTummy]

Rose, we are planning on doing the breast crawl as it is very much encouraged at both the calmbirth classes and our hospital funnily enough. I think it sounds wonderful and it really does just make sense....

[Dasharity]

Wow it is amazing what natural instincts little bubbas have that in our culture ignores, i deffinantly want to try this with my next bub.

[*star*]

Maybe I'm the only one here who found this a bit strange and awful for the baby? I watched this when it was first posted up and didn't write anything, but coming across it again, I can't help myself.

What I think of when I watch it is that it looks like something that would need to occur in nature when the mother has died during birth - a survival instinct kind of thing- baby needing to get to the milk because there's no one else there to help her. Yes, it is definitely amazing, but in my opinion a horrible thing to get the baby to do straight after birth. We have arms to help this happen - yes I agree with skin to skin and baby nuzzling to find attachment, but I can't believe the amount of energy expended already for the baby in getting through the birth canal and then you want them to crawl up your chest because you find it beautiful and amazing? I don't know, I obviously don't get it, but it seems a little selfish to me.

[Tobily]

star - the reasoning behind this isn't to give the mother a beautiful experience (although that's a nice added benefit) It is to prime the baby to breastfeed well, facilitate strong bonding and to continue the partnership of mother and baby working together to make the immediate postpartum period safer for both of them. As most of us here can testify to, breastfeeding can be very difficult at first and some of that is due to all the interference we and our babies experience, both during labour and straight after.

Barb Glare made an awesome post explaining this a couple of months ago, I'm posting it again here I hope you don't mind barb

Mothers and babies form the most amazing system. Babies are so vulnerable at birth - and yet so capable. Mothers are so powerful. The breastcrawl is an amazing part of the system that makes up birth and breastfeeding.
Babies, full term, and unmedicated and undamaged from the birth process are optimally primed to breastfeed - it is their only source of nutrition for around the first 6 mnths, and their main source of nutrition for 1-2 years or more. Over the years, a fabulous system has developed between mother and child. But one that has been largely lost, by *modern* interventions. When the baby is born, his sense of smell is acute. And so is his eyesight - at a close range - between mother's stomach and nipple and mother's nipple and face. After birth, baby needs to organise his senses, and move at his own pace to the breast. He is born with a "stepping" relex that allows him to "crawl" up his mother's body to the breast. (not very long ago we used to think of this as an archaic reflex - no use now, and believe that newborns couldn't see). As baby crawls, he kneads his mother's stomach with his legs, and kneads her breast with his hands, releasing oxytocin, the "love hormone". This helps her uterus contract, but it also helps her bond with her baby. Not so very long ago (still, unfortunately, in many places) babies were taken from their natural environment - their mother's body - weighed, measured, wrapped like little bundles where they couldn't use their limbs or their senses and had their heads forced onto their mothers breast. Many on this forum will attest to the breastfeeding problems this caused.
Mothers, as well, operate under the influence of these instincts and hormonal cues if they are allowed - in all these films of mothers and babies, mothers do instinctually help their babies, waiting for their cues, rubbing their backs, kissing their babies - falling in love - the love that will last a lifetime.
It is absolutely worth writing *skin to skin* undisturbed time with baby into your birth plan and insisting that your wishes be respected. The world, the visitors, the medical staff can wait. For we mothers, this precious time happens only 1 or two or if we are lucky, three times in our lives these days. The bonds we form underpin our whole mothering experience.
The great thing is that we get a "second chance". for many of us, birth does not, these days, go as planned. But we can regain the magic of that early time by being skin to skin with our baby - in bed or in the bath. As baby relaxes into our body, he regains the instincts he had after birth, and in this undisturbed, peaceful state will often be able to latch on and feed properly.