The first cry of the newborn is the form of expression used to debut in life, although not all babies cry at the time of delivery.
Perhaps the first cry is simply a reflex produced by the strong vibration of the vocal cords as they receive the first air that the lungs expel as they begin to breathe on their own.
But most likely it is due to the stress that the baby undergoes at birth . To the great change that he experiences when going from a safe, tenuous and warm environment, such as the maternal uterus to another unknown one, with a much lower temperature, and in which he is often separated from the mother. As soon as the baby is placed skin-to-skin with his mother, he stops crying as he feels protected again.
Theories about the newborn’s first cry
The first cry of the newborn is such a transcendent fact in the life of the human being that it led philosophers and psychologists to propose some hypotheses about its origin.
Adler postulated a theory about the existence of an integral dynamic force, in the so-called “aggressive impulse” , which is already expressed in the newborn’s first cry and in the child’s motor manifestations (hitting, struggling, biting …).
For his part, Otto Rank, an Austrian psychoanalyst, defined the baby’s first cry as “birth trauma” due to “the loss of the earthly paradise represented by the mother’s cloister.”
Spanking the newborn
Sometimes there is the mistaken feeling that labor is not over if the child has not cried, but not all babies do so despite being perfectly healthy. In the past, if the baby did not cry, he was spanked, hit on the back, hung by the feet or pinched. The delivery was considered successful only when the baby’s first cry was heard. Fortunately, these practices are no longer carried out today.
When the child does not cry immediately, it does not mean that he was not born healthy . Some babies are exhausted from delivery, but if they have a good color, are breathing well, and are moving there is no need to be alarmed.
Most of the time the baby’s first breath starts spontaneously followed by crying. If this is not the case, the delivery doctors will do what is necessary to stimulate the first breath, but in no case will you be spanked.
Not all children initiate the first breath accompanied by crying, there is only a soft gasp that indicates that air has entered their lungs for the first time.
Effects of the first cry on the baby and the mother
The baby’s first cry has beneficial physiological and emotional effects, both on him and on his mother . It helps to stimulate the voluntary breathing of the newborn and to eliminate the amniotic fluid and mucus that it has in the mouth, in the nose and in the respiratory passages.
At the same time, it has important psychological and hormonal effects on the mother. Upon hearing the first cry of her child, the mother feels great joy at hearing it for the first time , the reassurance that the delivery has gone well and the excitement of the goal achieved.
In addition, the crying of the child causes the mother to begin to secrete hormones that stimulate the production and rise of milk.
In conclusion, the first cry of the newborn is the response to the sudden change of environment that the child experiences when passing from the mother’s womb to the external environment, when the pulmonary respiration begins and when the umbilical blood circulation changes for the corporeal circulation.
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