Every newborn, when placed on mother’s abdomen soon after birth, has the ability to find its mother’s breast all on its own and to decide when to take the first breast feed. This is called Breast Crawl. It was first described in 1987 at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Marshall Klaus reviewed many studies on Breast Crawl and gave a beautiful description of Breast Crawl in 1998. The credit for using the word Breast Crawl as a noun for the first time should be given to Klaus. The starting position for Breast Crawl (nose of newborn in the middle of mother’s breast, eyes at the level of the nipples) had been specified by Varendi et al in 1996. Everything in Breast Crawl is perfectly designed by nature. The skin-to-skin contact helps the baby to remain warm and initiates mother-baby bonding. Baby’s kicking on mother’s abdomen stimulates uterus to contract thereby reducing bleeding and enhances expulsion of placenta. The baby smells food close by, begins salivating, reaches areola and initiates breast feeding by itself. Recent behavioral and physiological observations found that infant and mother are ready to begin interacting in the first few minutes of life and also observed infant’s ability to crawl towards mother’s breast to initiate breast feeding by itself. The most virtually striking observation of first minutes of life is the ability of a newborn if left quietly on the mother’s abdomen after birth, to crawl towards her breast, find the nipple and begin to suckle.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 15:56:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015