saw beeb programme last night - scary!!

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made me think a lot.....

how long does a baby's brain need to be starved of oxygen before any damage actually occurs...am thinking of that case of cord wrapped around poor newborn's neck...

few minutes? how many minutes? or can a baby not cry for a while, be starved of oxygen and actually turn out completely fine???

scared - worried

They were definately over dramatising the program last night especially with the normal birth and the breech caesarean. Plenty of babies don't cry for about the length of time it took the caesarean baby and most of them just need rubbing with a towel. In terms of how long they can go without oxygen they say that with shoulder dystocia ( head out shoulders stuck cord compressed) you have 7 minutes to get them out and when you do a crash caesarean they like to get the baby out within 15 - 30 minutes but as mintpurple says there are lots of individual variations. Having said all this it is quite scary waiting for a baby to cry but honestly the majority are absolutely fine and time does slow down when they don't scream immediately.

I was quite scared by the meconium aspiration story - lots of babies are born with meconium but I have yet to come across one so badly affected (thank goodness) - I think it is scary because the baby was completely normal before he took that breath of meconium and then he was just so ill. Was lovely to see him at the end all smiles though.

just to clarify - lots of babies are born with meconium in the amniotic fluid but they generally don't breathe it in

mint and netee thanks ever so much for your responses especially re: oxygen depravation!!

and also re the fact that meconium aspiration doesn't always lead to such bad case scenarios!!

thanks for your words!!