“Birth no more constitutes the beginning of the life of the individual than it does the end of gestation. Birth represents a complex and highly important series of functional changes which serve to prepare the newborn for the passage across the bridge between gestation within the womb and gestation continued out of the womb.” (Montagu, 1986, 57)
Welcome to The Fourth Trimester
The Magical Hour
Birth interventions and the medicalisation of natural childbirth last century masked something incredible which had almost been lost in western midwifery memory: babies are born hard-wired to seek the breast and attach with minimal assistance.
The hints were there in the reflexes observed and assessed at birth: the stepping movement of the feet, the rooting reflex, the grasping reflex. Babies delivered onto the belly of their mother can crawl and move their body to the breasts, identify the nipple area, lift and move into position and latch on.
Why we are surprised by this, when we observe similar behaviour in other mammals shows how distanced we are from our biological normal.