How does the baby experience childbirth? How does he feel during labor and when he is born? Some answers on how the baby behaves and feels.

The baby is in the anterior position in most cases: his face is facing the mother’s back.

He adopted this posture from the 37th week of pregnancy. It is in the cephalic position (head down) except in the case where it presents in seat (buttocks first).

Thanks to the recording of the heart rate of babies during labor (monitoring), we know that the baby continues to have awake and sleep phases during contractions. Specialists in birth think that the first contractions would do it like a kind of massage. The baby wakes up only during the expulsion phase.

The baby also responds to the various events with which it is confronted (modification of the placental circulation due to contractions, mechanical forces on the head and the cord, reduction of oxygen in its blood) by modifications of its metabolism and its circulation. blood.

When the baby presses his head against the cervix, it can lead to a small hematoma (visible at birth). It is believed that he is not in pain because he secretes endorphins that calm the pain.

He does several rotations while dozing to cross the pelvis. It makes a first rotation to cross the upper strait of the pelvis: it turns its head, and bends it downwards, chin on the thorax. It makes a second rotation to exit the lower strait of the basin.

Once the baby’s head comes out, he begins to breathe. In contact with air, the pulmonary alveoli unfold, the intra-pulmonary fluid is reabsorbed, the surfactant modifies the elasticity of the alveolar walls. By preventing them from retracting, it permanently maintains a small volume of residual air essential for effortless breathing. There are also changes in the baby’s cardiovascular system.

When the contractions are too strong or the labor too long, the baby lacks oxygen, his heart rate then adapts to the lack of oxygen: the heart may slow down during the contractions, or accelerate. This adaptation is physiological.

It is only when the fetal monitoring shows a significant and prolonged slowing down of the baby’s heartbeat that the baby is said to be in fetal distress. The medical team can then use forceps or suction cups or perform a cesarean section to get the baby out quickly.

The change in lifestyle is brutal for the baby: sudden change in temperature, light, distance from the sounds of his mother’s heart, noises and restlessness… This is why skin-to-skin is comforting for him. He is in your warmth, your scent, he hears the sounds of your heart. The ideal is for the light to be turned off in the birth room once the mother’s care has been completed. Your little turn is then in continuity with its previous life. Before gradually adapting to his new life!