Kathy Dettwyler wrote:

<<<
I suspect, but have no proof, that the long and deep sleep that some/many US
babies engage in during the first few days of life *may* be the result of
more prolonged and traumatic labors than most babies experience in many
other cultures.  We do a lot of interventions that prolong labor, including
just taking the mother into a situation which is totally foreign and
surrounding her with strangers and taking away all or almost all of her
control -- then we put her on her back, do invasive procedures such as
vaginal checks, IV's, fetal monitors, etc.  Surely there must be research
out there documenting differences in labor times in hospital vs. home births
in the US.  So you hae a stressed baby, sometimes even a drugged baby at
birth.  Add to that the fact that there is much more cephalo-pelvic
disproportion in First World births, due to the better health and diet of
the mother during pregnancy, leading to really big babies with really big
heads, so the baby takes a longer time to be born and perhaps is more
squished/stressed during the delivery process than a smaller Malian baby
would be.  Women in Mali mostly give birth at the local clinic.  They stay
at home until almost time to deliver.  At the clinic they walk or sit until
delivery is imminent, then they deliver lying down, and then they get up and
walk up the stairs to a bed.  They get no labor drugs, no IVs, no fetal
monitoring, and after the first time, they are used to the context -- even
though it isn't at home as their mothers probably did it, they have many
children each, so most of the children are born to experienced, multiparous
mothers.>>>

In the Netherlands, 30-40 % of the babies are born at home. Those deliveries
are attended by midwifes. The hospital deliveries tend to be very
non-interventional either. We have a c-section rate of 8% (still too high),
no standard use of epi's, labor drugs, etc. Most women give birth without
drugs. (Our perinatal death rate is very low either).

We do have big babies, and lots of first babies (offspring rate is less than
2), so that migth cause a lot of traumatic (for the baby) deliveries. But
here it is very common too that babies fall asleep after a few hours and are
sleepy for a few days.

Eg, both my first son as my second son (the first born at home, heavy
delivery, second born at home and it was very easy) fell asleep after a
couple of hours, and remain sleepy for a couple of days. But after these days
they wanted to suck much more often that those "every three hours".

so, if these 'sleepy days' with blocks of sleep and long nurse sessions at
the breast after delivery are natural or not, I think that doesn't say
anything about the days *after* these first days.

IMO the use of pacifiers in so many western baby is already an indication
that those blocks of sleep/non-nursing periods are not the natural pattern.

--
Annelies Bon                                http://www.flnet.nl/~0bon01/
mother of Dirk 6yo, Tom 4yo, Pieter 18mo
mailto:[log in to unmask]
bf counsellor in training of the Dutch bf org "Borstvoeding Natuurlijk"