Some of the discussions of early weight loss have involved good hospital births in which babies lost weight, and good home births in which they didn't. I'd say, if we're going to look at near-normal, we have to look only at the home births.
What effect do the different smells and light levels have on the mom in a hospital? Who knows? What about the fact that the mom isn't on her home turf? I know *I* was much more compliant in the hospital than I would have been at home, and I know that affected my behavior in many ways - probably including much less infant-centered time. My guess is, I'd find a hospital stay constipating, no matter how good the experience; my bowels just respond negatively to trips. If I think I'm fully at ease but my intestines don't, am I really at ease and behaving normally? Nope, there are all kinds of potentially confounding variables in even the best birth center birth, if we're really trying to look at normal birth behaviors and outcomes.
My first career was as a naturalist. When I was watching a roomful of captive birds for some research, I sat quietly on a stool, taking notes, and the birds quickly learned to ignore me completely. There was a marked natural hierarchy - a peck order - among the individual birds, noticeable from the start. I'd have staked my reputation on it. Interestingly, as soon as I got a little tent set up in the room and did my observations from there, totally hidden... the hierarchy completely disappeared. It was a side effect of my presence in the room, and I *never* would have guessed it.
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC Ithaca, NY USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com
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