You and your New Born Baby
In the 24 hours after the birth of your newborn, you may well ache all over from the work you did during the labour. Your arms and your legs may be sore from pulling back on your legs whilst pushing out the baby.
It is normal, don't worry!Whether the labour is long or short, hard or easy, whether delivered vaginally or by caesarean, for most parents the recollection of the first hours and days after the birth is a crystal-clear images surrounded by a haze. It is in this haze that you take your first steps from pregnancy to parenting.
Practice makes perfect!Having said that, even with all the parenting practice and rehearsals done before conception and during pregnancy, despite all the weeks of your baby moving and kicking inside and the months of fantasizing about your baby, despite all the strange dreams and worrying thoughts, and musing over whether you will be a good parent, the first time you hold your baby in your arms the instant you realise you truly are a mother or father, mama or papa, mommy or daddy, a realisation overwhelms you that life will never be the same again. Your new child is now dependent upon you for survival. More than anything else, you want to be the best parent possible.Your awareness of your new baby's dependency and your desire to be a good parent will equally be a great source of energy and a great source of stress. Both are part of being a parent, this is perfectly normal and you shouldn't worry to much about these emotions.To become a good parent you need to do more then just know a lot about babies. Ask your paediatric doctor or nurse what it was like for them when they became a new parent. I'm sure they will tell you that everything they learnt about babies was not enough to keep them from being over whelmed by their own babies. All new parents feel the same way. All new parents have to work at knowing, understanding, and loving their babies. Your baby will work just as hard at learning to know, understand, and love you. This is the process of bonding - the work that parents and babies do together to form a deep and lasting love. It is what becoming a family is all about.In most countries, the postnatal period is seen as being at least as important as the prenatal period; it is because of this that women giving birth in hospitals have longer stays. Probably more importantly, services are brought to the homes of new families. No matter how long the stay in a hospital, the family's move into the home (and to sole responsibility for the newborn) is overwhelming. In most countries new families are visited at home by midwives, nurses, or other trained paediatric personnel who teach parenting skills, assess the mother's and the new baby's health, and provide moral support (and sometimes, as in the Netherlands, government-paid helpers do the housekeeping!). In the United States, such services are now provided to only a small minority of women.
