Still born babies aren’t always dead.
Yesterday, April 12th, 2008, I had a machinegun-like assault on my emotions. Let me bring you into my little world for a few moments…
I have been waiting for this one particular female to give birth any time. This is her shown above as a baby. She had a relatively quick ovulation just three weeks after the male, shown below, was introduced in early November. That first ovulation was November 28th. I never observed a subsequent ovulation. She did not have her POS until January 18th. That’s 51 days after that shed. So I already knew I could not go by that date to predict her due date, but not having seen the second ovulation, I really did not know when she should be due. Still I watched for the signs and they came. Thursday, Friday and Saturday I probably checked on her 70 times before I finally caught her having birth contractions.
Here is the male that bred her:
So finally about 1:00 PM I find her having birth contractions. She is really wrenching and blowing up remarkable large in the last 12” - 14” above the cloaca. I mean inordinately large, unlike I have seen before. All this while I can clearly see the cloaca agape with what looks like the side of the passageway almost starting to come out the center of the opening. I can see where they should be coming out at the lower left of the cloaca, but there is nothing. No goo. Nothing. I ask my wife to get me some KY Jelly quick and I am thinking about sticking in a finger to push that flap aside and get those babies coming. My wife returns with the lubricant when, here they come slipping out very quickly. The first seven babies were all still in their birth membranes so I knew they were going to be fine. A delay, and babies that are not in the membrane can be very bad, and that is what this writing is about. This was about 20 minutes after I watched that rear end blow up with the products of their conception. OK, finally the babies are flowing right?
Showtime! I place a sheet of plastic between me and the mother of the babies. She is not as out of it as mother usually are when they give birth. In fact this female is much like her mother, the Monster Tail, and wishes me ill at every opportunity. Hence the plastic shield I placed in the cage. A black plastic shield. We are waiting for more babies when who pops around the corner? Momma! She is not happy to spot me, my light and crew, who are my two daughters and wife. The birthing process stops. She is in defense mode. I pull the plastic and we all back off. She crawls for several minutes before starting the birth process again.
Now it’s been about five minutes since the last baby came out. She is completely reversed with her head near the babies already delivered and her tail end at the right front of the cage. We wait. We wait some more, and again I dreadingly watch that back end blow up like a water balloon filling with water pressure. My son, and right hand man, comes downstairs now. She has gone about 15 more minutes all blown up without a drop coming out. That little flap is still there not allowing the passage of anything. I fear that the harder she pushes, the more firmly that flap is going to cover that opening. However, because of her alertness, I think I may be in for a pretty good battle if I try to assist her. I have two fore arm length snowmobile gloves ready for the boy to place his hands over her head and the front part of her body, while I work the rear to do some sort of manipulation to try to get those babies out. I image pulling her last third out of the cage trying to get gravity to help move the babies out. I assume I will have to insert at least one finger to help get this started. I have done it before. It’s stressful for everyone, and not much fun for either of us… when squirt!
Out come three babies in an instant! They almost shot out and splashed me with goo. I have been looking forward to these babies for months. No years really as I knew exactly who this male would breed long before he was breedable. I have been preoccupied with this breeding for a long time and especially the past week or so as I knew she was winding down based on her behavior. It’s then that I realize the babies that all squirted out were all out of the membrane. They were lifeless. Not moving at all. Then in about five more seconds four more babies in the exact same condition. Oh no!!! I was really scared now.
I have had this happen before. Two years ago I had a female gave birth to seven perfect babies and then had a 20 minute delay due to a massive slug. All the other babies, thirty of them, were born outside of their membranes dead. I was thinking of this while I tried to patiently wait before these babies finally popped out when I could see that my greatest fears in fact were being realized. Dead babies. Lots of them, out of the membrane! I would not just wait idly hoping something different might happen. I thought very quickly. They had to have been fine just 5 or 10 minutes ago right? They must have been. The first seven were all fine! So as quickly as I could, I grabbed a tub of warm water. My 18 year old daughter held that tub for me. My wife held the light and I grabbed seemingly lifeless baby after lifeless baby and vigorously swished them in that water in an attempt to make sure the membrane was not covering their head. If that membrane was not free of the head, then a tired out baby, too weak to move a muscle, certainly could not free itself of that membrane and breath its first breath. So swishing away was I. I didn’t know what else to do. I did this as quickly as I could to each baby.
Twenty one full term babies were born in about four minutes after the first ones popped out. About five were born in the membrane and I knew they were going to be fine. The rest of the babies were mostly lifeless. They had been ruptured from the safety of the membranes they had spent the last four months in, and could not get that first breath of air they needed to sustain their little lives. How they must have struggled inside their mom fighting the pressure with which she fought to deliver them into the world. They were finally out but what would become of them? I cleaned the lifeless little bodies in what seemed like a futile effort at the time, but as I watched these lifeless little ones I looked forward to so long, I could not stop. If there was any hope that maybe one would make it, I would go on.
I cleaned them up very quickly. This was not a thorough cleaning but just a quick cursory cleaning with my main concern being the head area. My other was making sure each of their little heads was no place near any baby goo. If the front of a head was up against even a small amount of baby good, that could block the mouth and prevent possible breathing. Then a couple started to move slightly. A twitch here and a twitch there and they seemed to be making an effort. Using my fingers, I agitated them slightly. I moved them from side to side quickly as I had a lot of them to attend to. Again, I did not know what the result would be. They began to come around. Most of them did anyhow. I went from extreme disappointment in thinking I had lost nearly all but the first seven, to profound excitement knowing that perhaps all my poking and prodding had made some difference. Most of the litter was going to be just fine.
It certainly did. If I had let the female give birth, after I had interrupted her, those babies would have been awash in goo and many of them would never have pulled their heads up for the first breath. I am well aware that this instance probably would not have happened if I had not been there with my camera. She probably would have had them all just fine in that first position after that initial struggle when she finally broke free from the obstruction that had delayed her. However, females do occasionally have a naturally occurring problem that may delay the birth of babies and may result in still born appearing neonates. A little assistance as I have described may or may not make the difference some day for someone else that has something similar happen. I hope I don’t see this again, but it could happen.
The final result was this; The first seven babies are all doing very well. Of the twenty one “second push” babies, five were born in the membrane and were perfectly fine. Eight started to move and seemed to have recovered for the most part within about five to ten minutes after the quick bath. Eight others seemed to be dead. Of these eight, most were at the front of the line when that second surge started and due to my delay getting warm water and such, they suffered the most. We moved all the babies into the baby room where I was placing them into a heated rack. Three of the eight that seemed dead, began to come back. Eventually, these three came back completely and seem like perfectly normal babies now. The Momma had later given birth to two more babies. One was stillborn and the other very much alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mC_VlGoPOE
After all this, I was a bit loopy. While my head was still rushing and the excitement and disappointment were all surging through my very bones, I shot a little video of the entire litter of babies. This includes a quick glance at the still born babies who are in the same tub with the last three who seemed to have come back to life from the brink. Watch the video to see the babies and pay no attention to the man “behind the curtain”. He’s nuts!
-----
Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network
