We continue our interview with doctor Emilio Santos, psychiatrist and gynecologist, natural childbirth specialist, who currently attends home births in Madrid, but who has developed his training and professional career in all health areas, as well as being a regular speaker at conferences dedicated to natural childbirth and the promotion of breastfeeding
On this occasion we talked with him about the consequences it has for a baby to be born in a respected way, affecting aspects such as the separation of his mother, the early cutting of the cord, the donation of cord blood and the physical and psychological consequences of the sanitary practices that are performed in the traditional hospital setting and in the most appropriate protocols for his nature as a mammal, giving us, as always, the most up-to-date scientific data.
Does the type of birth and separation affect the baby?
Much. It influences aspects of the health of that future adult that with today's science we do not even suspect.
What practices should be avoided at birth?
There are many things that babies should avoid doing when they are just born. But I consider that there are two aspects within the usual delivery care that are especially harmful.
The first of the two aspects is the early cutting of the umbilical cord. Nature plans that when a baby is born coexists with his mother, united for a time, between one and twenty minutes. In that period simultaneously the baby begins the first breaths while enjoying a continuation of oxygenation through the umbilical cord that joins the placenta, which is still being oxygenated by the maternal blood.
The second aspect is the separation of the mother. The genetic program of the newborn is expected that when he has just been born, he will receive warm arms and chest and the same smells and the same voice that has accompanied him throughout the pregnancy.
When in a delivery of the habitual ones in our time as soon as he is born, the cord is cut in a mood to contribute to the reflex that makes him breathe and to avoid an alleged excess of red blood cells and then he is separated from the mother wanting to be able to monitor exhaustively his vital signs, this baby suffers the great fright of his life.
If in the wild a newborn mammal suffered physiologically analogous events, the next thing that was likely to happen is that the predator that has torn him from his mother's arms will devour him to feed. In Spanish we have the expression "a scare of death" to describe an acute panic event.
It is literally a "scare of death" that most babies suffer when they are born in our hospitals.
And this scare of death has great repercussion on the subsequent hours and days, this scared and stressed baby will have difficulties to be calm and serene and, very possibly will also have them to get to suck. The mother of this baby, in turn, will be stressed because her son does not breastfeed well, does not sleep well and does not stop crying. We are putting the breeding ground to create a hindered mother-newborn bond and, in cases, pathological.
This altered link in turn influences what will happen in the following weeks. What happens in the first weeks will influence what happens in the first months and what happens in the first months will influence what will happen in the first years.
We must not forget that a highly stressful event in an adult can cause a post-traumatic stress disorder. If this event has occurred in a child, the disorder can be much more serious. When younger is the most severe child is posttraumatic stress disorder and more severe are collateral damage. So far the theory.
But if I look at the practice, I can also state emphatically that babies born in childbirth at home, without the cord being cut prematurely, without mother-child separation, are afterwards children significantly more serene than those born in hospital births.
What does it mean for the baby to cut the cord early to save the blood?
When I have attended deliveries in hospital where the protocol forced me to cut the cord early, I observed how the moment of the impingement was reflected in the expression of the newborn's face and when it broke into tears.
Babies born at home or to whom no one cuts the cord while beating do not usually cry, because they do not need to cry.
When a baby has just been born the moment of cord clamping produces a sudden choking sensation, he is short of breath. He has the terrifying feeling that he can die.
What do you think of cord blood collection?
With the umbilical cord blood a possible treatment of the possible leukemia that one day that child could develop is planned. But recently I read an editorial in a scientific journal of a university professor who pointed out the possibility that late cord cutting is a much more potent protective factor for leukemia than autotransfusion treatment with stored cord blood.
It is true that in most hospitals an early cord cut is performed; If this is the case in this approach scheme, cord blood collection has no more inconvenience than the purely economical one.
But if the alternative to cord blood collection is a late cord clamp, I think it's worth it. The collection of cord blood necessarily involves early clamping. If the cord is allowed to beat, it begins to clog and it is very difficult to collect the amount of blood that the laboratory needs.
In my opinion, the collection of cord blood is “more of the same” in the medicalization of labor, it is giving more importance to being prepared for a catastrophe that may arise in the future instead of giving priority to preventing a catastrophe from arising The current moment.
When the cord blood is collected and for this an early clamp is done, it is preventing the baby from getting about 200 or 300 milliliters of blood that belong to him, we can almost talk about one-sixth of the blood he must have.
In what cases should a mother not remain beside her newborn child?
Only the mother-baby separation would be justified because of the mother, for example, a mother who has to be surgically operated or who has a serious psychiatric disorder; in short, exceptional cases.
It should never be separated because of the baby. If a baby is premature, even more reason to be with his mother. If a newborn has pneumonia: it is more reason for him to be stuck to his mother. If a newborn has any disorder: it is more reason for him to be stuck to his mother.
Medicine has forgotten that incubators were invented as an attempt to imitate a mother; Not the other way around. It has reached the paradoxical situation of exceptionally putting a sick baby with his mother as a last generation treatment.
Delve into this interview with doctor Emilio Santos in what babies feel and suffer from those who are deprived of a respected birth, those who are unnecessarily separated from their mothers and those who cut the cord prematurely allow us to better understand the consequences of these practices, not only at the medical level , but above all in the emotions and fears of the little ones.
