3. TIL some people have the birth of their child professionally photographed. [nsfw...

TIL some people have the birth of their child professionally photographed. [nsfw]

This is supposed to be a 'powerful' image series but quite frankly it's terrifying.

Look at the baby in the second last photo. Mom seems incredibly overwhelmed and happy - dad seems happy to be there. Both naked, skin to skin for baby, 'au naturale' as it were.

Did you look at the baby at all? Look closely

Look at baby's face. Seems kind purple? sure. Look at baby's hands - essentially white.

You wouldn't notice that initially because it blends in quite well in the photo against baby's skin. But this baby is potentially in trouble.

Typically you'll see babies with slightly purple/blue hands when they are born, which is a sign of something called peripheral cyanosis. Essentially what it means is that baby has got poor oxygen delivery to his or her extremities. You'll see it all the time, and they'll quickly 'pink up', no biggie, most of the time everything is good.

But this baby is blue in the lips, and white in the hands. Blue lips means central cyanosis - their core is low in oxygen and oxygen delivery is frighteningly low to the extremities.

This is potentially a baby in big trouble, with risks for respiratory compromise and low oxygen delivery to the brain - a baby like this is potentially at risk for crashing.

Maybe this baby 'pinks up' in a few minutes. But if I was looking after this baby, I'd be initiating a resuscitation protocol and extremely concerned for it's well being. Maybe this picture was taken immediately and within 1 hour maybe baby is doing well.

What's my point? Be super careful about deciding on home births, and have a backup plan for emergency care if you do. If you're careful and do the proper preparation, hopefully nothing goes wrong. But there's a lot that can.

Locally, a baby was born stillborn at a home birth because the midwife and doula didn't recognize signs of fetal distress - mom and dad are still at home, dealing with the aftermath and the devastating sense of loss. There's a lot of backlash against the 'over-medicalization' of childbirth lately, but that backlash ignores the absolutely crushing history of maternal and fetal death that happened when educated, experienced and properly equipped professionals weren't available to deal with emergencies.

TL;DR If you do home birth, have an emergency plan, for the love of god.

/r/todayilearned Thread Link - art-sheep.com
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