• Question: Is childbirth painful for the babies as well as the mothers?

    Asked by Supriya to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      Hmmm I’ve never thought of this… I guess it must be an uncomfortable experience for the baby, whether or not they feel pain from it I don’t know.

    • Photo: Vicky Bayliss

      Vicky Bayliss answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      they certainly come in screaming in the films… it must be fairly traumatic being suddenly cut off from your mother’s blood supply and being expected to breath and eat for the first time. and don’t their skulls sometimes get squished out of place by the birth?
      I don’t know for fact, but I would guess the answer was yes. Have you asked google?

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Having had my daughter in December I can tell you that the experience is quite traumatic. Actually at every contraction the hearth rate of the baby drops a little and this is what is carefully monitored by the nurses. A long labour will cause the drops in rate to be more significant and that is where the real risk is for the baby, to have less oxygen carried to his brain. Hence significant drops in rate are a red flag to be taken to theatre for an assisted delivery or an emergency c-section.
      The baby will suffer while passing through the pelvic bones of the mother, my daughter still has some marks of that passage but they should disappear in few months.
      There is a positive side to this suffering and this is the stimulus for the baby to breath, which is something new that need to be learned fast. The passage and the pain in the delivery free the lungs from the liquid and help the baby breath. This is one of the main problem of a c-section delivery, the missing shock make the baby more likely to have respiratory problem.

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