<He would not be aroused by anything. At first he was floating
in
the bath, supported by her hands. Then he went to her chest. Still no
response from him, even while drizzling warm water over him. "

<This response sounds like what some babies do during circumcision.  I
would
guess that something about being put in the bath reminded the baby of
that
experience.  Perhaps being naked and being handed down into the bath (I
assume that you handed him down to his mother in the tub) made him think
he
was being put on a circumstraint. >

I'm trying to put myself inside the baby's skin, so to speak. Somehow,
this does not square with my observations. Since a baby didn't know
beforehand what the circumstraint was or felt like, or what it held in
store for him, it seems to me that that experience held no more "terror"
than being undressed and put on a 72 degree cool scale platform, which
upsets most naked babies, at least as far as eliciting Morot reflex,
crying etc.

I do remember seeing many circumcized babies act this way *after*
(several hours after) they were circumcized, then redressed and swaddled,
sort as if they have dissociated after a traumatic experience, perhaps
storing it in their body memory. They often seemed to withhold urinating
till they just *have to*, in order not to "reawaken" that memory.

Nikki's description elicits in me a fantasy of the pure contentment,
trust and relaxation a baby must experience when asleep in utero before
the abrupt and frightening "storm" of a fast 5 hour labor and birth
sucked him up in its tornado, so to speak.

I have heard it explained that co-bathing may be psychologically
restorative in that it could somehow elicit the body memory of peaceful
prenatal sensations, and allow release of the tensions stored up from the
birth. (Baby body work at its most basic level?)

It seems just as likely to me that the bathing was a welcome respite of
"back to the womb" contentment, a little like the blessed relaxation that
many of us, still as adults, derive from a warm quiet bath in a dim room
after a rough day.

It's not hard to imagine that the added memories of withheld feedings and
being forced (screwed on to the breast?) to latch, plus the body memories
of the circumcision, make this baby's "plate pretty full", maybe adding
up to some degree of "neonatal PTSD".

(I am still concerned about that with my 13 y.o. grandson who had the
most traumatic C.Section that I ever saw in my OB experiences, with
forceps to remove him up out of where he was "jammed" into the narrow
pelvis, then accidentally dropped into/onto his mother's abdomen when the
forceps slipped off his head. It was a struggle for the doctor and I
didn't see that he had any choice. This was followed by collapsed lungs,
thoracenteses, ventilators, etc,. before they gave babies any pain
medication. It seems to me that he expresses it through throat tension,
gagging, hyperventilation, anorexic sensitivities and anger when
stressed.)

I would recommend to Nikki continuing the cobathing as often as it's
convenient for the parents to arrange it, wrapping the baby in a
receiving blanket to be handed down to the mother slowly and gently
before being unwrapped for skin to skin after contact with the water.
Gentle vocal vibrations of the mother might help, as might expressing
some milk and smearing it over the areola, (no physical latching
attempts) just to add natural scent to the "cocktail" of familiar and
comforting stimuli.

It didn't always work "perfectly" the first time I recommended its use to
a couple, but repetition always seemed to bring better results. I think
it is a very useful intervention.

Jean
************
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, RLC, IBCLC
Dayton, OH

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html