A Mom's Instinct, A Baby's Saving Grace

Photo Credit: Today Show

This story was told in 2010, yet the testimony of this mother's love and instinct to care for her brand new baby, who was pronounced dead, is no less powerful. I dare you not to cry as you read this article...

After Kate was told Jamie didn’t make it, nurses placed the baby across Kate’s bare chest so Kate and David could reconcile themselves to his death.
“I wanted to meet him and to hold him and for him to know us,” Kate Ogg told Curry. “If he was on his way out of the world, we wanted for him to know who his parents were and to know that we loved him before he died.”
But a strange thing happened on their way to farewell. After five minutes, Jamie began displaying short, startled movements. As Kate and David looked on, his movements became more pronounced.
Still, the baby’s doctor told the parents any movements were purely reflex, and their son was not alive. Read the article in full!

After the Oggs offered Jamie a dab of breast milk on her finger, they knew he was alive when he eagerly accepted it, however the doctor was refusing to believe their explanations. Eventually, they had to fib to get the doctor to come in the room. After checking the baby's pulse, a dumbfounded doctor proclaimed that baby alive! What a an amazing testimony to Kangaroo Care!

Kangaroo care is skin to skin contact with a newborn and their mother or father. It gives the baby a sense of security as warmth and heartbeats create a calming transition from the womb to the outside world. The skin to skin contact is very stimulating to a newborn. Although Kangaroo Care is emerging as a "technique", I tend to believe it to be more instinctive than anything. I never read up on Kangaroo Care, yet I practiced it in all of my home births. I wasn't given an opportunity to during my  hospital births, simply because of how the system works. All of my home births were water births and I had the wonderful opportunity to languish in the warm water, holding my brand new babies close to my chest at my leisure.  Hospitals are designed to separate the mother and child at every turn. This is clear in many of their policies, whether it's offering a bottle of formula, or keeping a child in the nursery ward. I truly believe immediate separation is emotionally traumatic to a newborn (and mom) and creates feelings of insecurities on the moms part. I don't care what any doctor says, a crying, flailing, just born baby is not a "good" thing. My home birth babies did not cry upon arrival. They were very peaceful, mental alert and with VERY it. 

It warms my soul to read an article such as this! When a mom can still be an empowered, instinctive and confident mom in an cold and functional environment. Dad Ogg was right to call his wife "very strong and very smart". 

 “She instinctively did what she did,” Ogg told The Daily Mail. “If she hadn’t have done that, then Jamie probably wouldn’t be here.”

There's not a doubt in anyone's mind that this mom's instinct was her child's saving grace.



Source:
Mom's Hug Revives Baby That Was Pronounced Dead