08/18/2025
Note: kitchen cutting board in place to create the firm, level position desired for a resuscitation. And remember…Don’t sever the LIFE LINE aka umbilical cord.🪢
✨Breathing support ✨
In the uterus your baby is completely dependent on the placenta to provide oxygenation through the umbilical cord.
Your baby is swimming in amniotic fluid and needs to clear that fluid to make room for air once born.
Most babies born vaginally will have no issues in doing this, they will let out a big cry and the pressure from that inhalation forces fluid in the lungs to move out into the tissues and let air in.
As the placenta stops pulsating to your baby and inhalation begins the reduced pressure will cause 3 shunts in the heart to close. These were alternate paths for blood flow while your baby is in the uterus and they are not needed after birth.
At times this transition can be delayed and that can be due to many things such as maternal medications, poor placental function etc.
So what do we do as midwives?
First we stimulate give bub a nice rub, ask mum to blow on the face to try and initiate a cry if these aren't
working we go straight to a bag and mask.
If you think of the lungs as 2 flat balloons.
We all know how hard it is to get that first breath into a flat balloon and once there is a little air in there the balloon inflates a lot easier.
Putting it simply that is what the bag and mask does, it pushes air into your baby’s lungs to inflate the “balloons” (lungs) and makes it a whole lot easier to take that first breath.
Keeping the CORD INTACT is a resuscitation technique on its own, research has shown babies with delayed cord clamping started to breathe and establish regular breathing earlier then babies who had early cord clamping.
In Australia it's rare at the moment for resuscitation to take place by the bedside in a hospital setting. At home births this can easily be achieved as you can see in the above photo.
Midwives : 👏
📷 : Emma-Jean Photography ♥️
✨ Words and informative Repost by Peace with birth ✨
