Oddly enough, it’s not a widely known that a newborn human baby is capable of finding his mother’s breast to initiate the first breast feed. This wonderful phenomenon is called, “The Breast Crawl”.
In fact some mothers, who had no idea of this newborn ability, were very shocked to see it happen. They said that they were simply cuddling their baby after birth and enjoying skin to skin contact when bub decided it was time to find mum’s breast.
Newborns are not particularly co-ordinated when they are first born. So when they start fumbling around on your chest, it can look like they are struggling. But really, they are just on their first adventure. What they do have is an acute sense of smell that acts as a strong stimulus to draw the baby towards his mother’s nipple.
Before trying to latch with his mouth, he’s likely to reach with his hand and grab at your nipple. This “nipple massage” encourages the production of oxytocin in the mother which aids the expulsion of the placenta.
After grabbing at the nipple he will wriggle his body and kick with his legs so that he can move his mouth over and make an effort to latch onto your nipple. When he does this, he is actually working out how to open his mouth and attach correctly. It’s really like all things you will do with your child in their life time. You’ll want to help and they’ll want to work it out themselves and eventually you will all get there!
When first hearing about this, some mothers can be frightened or worried that they’re putting their beautiful new baby through more trauma by making them do it all on their own. However, it’s important to keep in mind that there are some wonderful benefits for bub and mum by giving this a chance to happen.
Babies are extremely alert immediately after birth and this process is all a part of their discovery of this very different new world they’ve just entered. It is not something that will distress or upset them. As we said earlier, it can happen without a mother even realising it!
Breast Crawl Facts
- Giving your baby the opportunity to breast crawl is beneficial for both mother and baby.
- The Breast Crawl is not widely known or understood. This is the main reason why it does not happen more often, not because it is hard.
- Babies given the opportunity to breast crawl are much more likely to have a successful breast feeding experience and usually have less difficulties learning to breast feed.
- If circumstances allow, it is possible to attempt some variation of the breastcrawl after a caesarean or even with a pre-term baby.
The video below shows a baby finding his own way to his mother’s breast. Please note that if you You Tube “breastcrawl”, you’ll find some fantastic videos. But you need to be signed into a gmail account to view them as they show real footage of breasts. Most of the videos run for about 10 minutes, which is long in the You Tube world, but actually a very short time for a newborn bub to work out latching on!
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