Hearing Your Baby Cry Out for the First Time

After a baby is born, he or she will breathe in, for the first time, a gulp of air and this will make the baby cry. Crying is something that is good because it causes the baby to expand his or her lungs and helps to clean the deepest secretions. As opposed to what a lot of people believe, most doctors do not slap the baby’s bottom when he or she is born, however there is another type of method to stimulate crying and breathing, which consists in rubbing the baby’s back, for example, or by giving little pats on the bottom of the baby’s feet. Don’t get worried if the baby does not cry right at the very moment he or she is born. Sometimes several seconds or even minutes have to go by before the baby starts to cry out.

Evaluating the Baby’s Well Being
All newborn babies are evaluated according to the Apgar Scale. This name came about in honor of doctor Virginia Apgar who came up with it in 1952. This measuring scale is a very useful way of seeing and evaluating the condition of the baby in order to see if specialized medical attention is required. With this scale there are five things that are evaluated which are, cardiac rhythm, respiratory strength, muscular tone, presence of reflexes and color. Each of these things can be given a value of 0, 1 or 2, which is the highest score. The Apgar points are accumulated in the first minute and in the fifth minute. An Apgar measurement of six or more communicates tranquility. Since some of the characteristics that are evaluated depend partially on the gestational age of the baby, premature babies are frequently marked lower down on the scale. Other factors, such as how sedated a mother was while giving birth, can differ the points a baby has.

There are many first time parents that wait for the results of the Apgar score for their baby. In fact, the Apgar point that is measured one minute after the baby is born indicates if the baby needs artificial resuscitation, but is not appropriate to predict how that baby’s long-term health will be. The measuring of the Apgar scale that is taken five minutes after the baby is born can indicate if the resuscitation measures were effective. Sometimes, a very low value in the measuring of the five minutes can reflect a lack of oxygen for the baby, but it still does not have a correlation with the baby’s future health. The purpose of the Apgar measure is to simply help the doctor to identify babies that require of more medical attention when they are newborns. However, this is not a scale that indicates if a baby is smart or not smart or if he will be a genius etc.

Cutting the Umbilical Cord
After the baby is born, the next step will be to place a clamp on the umbilical cord and cut it. There are doctors that will allow the father of the baby or the person accompanying the mother to cut the umbilical cord but it is not something that has to be done if the person does not want to. However, if you do want to do this, make sure you let the doctor know beforehand.

Usually after cutting the umbilical cord, the doctor will accommodate the baby over your abdomen, or he or she will give the baby to the nurse so that the baby can get placed under a heat lamp. Which one of these happens, depends on the conditions the baby is in as well as the institutional policies of the place you gave birth in.