When I first started nursing, I was a perinatal float and had to do my time in the nursery. The older nurses taught me how to measure a baby by holding them by the feet. I did it when they were around. I think it is much more accurate, but there is no prize for the longest baby. After all, it ain't a fishing derby!
Now when I have a very "juicy" baby, I hold them at quite an angle, but supporting the neck and head not just letting them hang there.
Fran Wilson, CNM
Kennewick, WA
From: "R. Daniel Braun" <rd.braun@gmail.com>
Reply-To: ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net
To: Multiple recipients of list OB-GYN-L <ob-gyn-l@dns.obgyn.net>
Subject: Re: Legal opinion needed
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 05:52:32 -0600
I have on many occasions held babies up by their feet. A. You can get a good grip that way. & B. It allows for gravity drainage of all those nasty secretions out of the oropharynx.
I have never smacked one to get it to cry. Only the nurses hit babies to make them cry.(And in my experience, even when the kid is breathing very well. They just want to know that he is breathing while they are across the room and not looking at him.
On 2/23/06, Grace Loehr <divinegracie@earthlink.net> wrote:
From Hanky
> Legal issue: Should Children Witness Childbirth?
<snipped fluffy joke post>
Has anybody actually ever held a baby up by its feet upside down and
slapped its buttocks? I've never seen anybody do this, (not even the
older docs who delivered breeches vaginally or used forceps well), nor
do I think it would be wise holding a newborn up by its feet -- it'd be
hard to get a grip on the poor little thing. Or is this one of those
weird things that has gotten transmitted throughout American pop
culture (like in Normal Rockwell paintings) and passed off as actual
practice? Any of you MWs or MDs older than I ever do this or seen it
done? How would you actually grip the baby's little
ankles without
hurting it?
Grace
(BTW, This joke reminded me of a really gross episode of South Park
involving Mr Slave and Paris Hilton.)
