Rock-a-bye Baby

Had dinner at a friend's place and visited their brand new, six day old baby boy.  For being in labor for sixty hours, Neha looks amazing -- the picture of maternal calm.  And Ali, the proud father, beams.

We learn all about labor room Hindi; the harsh tones of "push karo! push karo! karo! karo! karo!" found nowhere else (leave it to a Hindi teacher to be transfixed by the various tones of Hindi happening in the labor room!)

What really moved me about being there last night was the sense of community and extended family in caring for the baby, which happens all over Asia, but was readily apparent last night.  Neha's sister (and her nine-month old daughter) and mother were both there; whenever a baby was crying or needed changing, whoever was closest just picked up the baby and did whatever needed to be done.  There were no egos or "fighting" over what's best for the baby or who's ideas are right and whose are wrong.

Another area that struck me is the lack of overprotection that I often see with newborns back in the US.  Quite a few of my friends back home require not only hand-washing, but anti-disinfectant before anyone can pick up their babies.  They have hundred-dollar disinfectant diaper disposal units, baby monitors, and all sorts of baby-protection devices.  Not that I blame them, of course.  I'm sure we'll be drawn to those just as much as our friends.  But what I appreciate in India is that everything is just real and as-is.  There is no sound protection for all the fire crackers that were going off, no crazy amounts of protection (when we got there, the baby was in a crib with three walls; the fourth was off, and the baby was sleeping peacefully). And perhaps because of this lack of obsession for sterility, there are fewer reported allergies here (exposure to at least some bacteria is good to get the immune system up and running healthily).

Interestingly, our friends are now huge proponents of lotus birth, or the practice of leaving the placenta attached to the baby's body and letting the umbilical cord fall off naturally.  The idea is that the placenta still has an immense amount of nutrients and blood, which are being denied to the baby by clamping the umbilical cord at delivery.  Once these are passed to the baby, the placenta shrivels up and the umbilical cord naturally falls off (a process which takes about 2-3 days).  Proponents of lotus birth delivery argue that cutting the umbilical cord denies the baby almost half their blood volume at birth, and some point to the fact that Vishnu (the supreme Hindu god) and the Buddha both were products of lotus birth.  

The counterargument, of course, is that keeping the placenta only increases the risk for infection (besides just plain weirding people out, when they must carry not only the baby, but the bowl holding the placenta).

Whatever one believes, it certainly takes "natural birth" to the next level!