A short video shared by Kidspot has drawn attention to a moving phenomenon exhibited by newborn babies.
The footage shows a tiny newborn only a few hours old, engaging in ‘breast crawling’, an interaction which involves a newborn pulling itself up onto its mother’s nipples. The ‘breast crawl’ urge allows babies to independently find their mother’s nipples when left undisturbed. They use all five senses to navigate their way to the nipple, which smells similar to the amniotic fluid they’ve been surrounded by for nine months.
The instinct is believed to be an adaptation to offer a newborn the best chance of survival after birth. The skin-to-skin contact of breast crawling helps regulate the baby’s temperature, stimulates colostrum (the mother’s first milk), and contracts the uterus.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends breastfeeding within the first 30 minutes after birth, as it quietens the baby and allows their natural instincts to kick in.
Professionals also advocate as little disturbance to the baby following birth as possible. The Global Health Media Project (GHMP) stresses that it’s important to simply dry the baby and avoid the hands – as the amniotic fluid on the hands will guide the baby in terms of how and where to feed.
The footage is a reminder that newborns have a number of innate, universal instincts, that continue to amaze us.