This is what the LORD says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:10,11 (New Living Translation)
I am a trained Community Health Worker. I am familiar with the reasons Doctors and/or Midwives spank babies after they are born. Though not practiced too often these days, the idea of smacking a baby at birth, especially the ones who do not cry immediately following their delivery, is actually done for their own (the babies) benefit.
For the lay man, the explanation is simple. Firstly, it is to help the baby take in air and 'force' him to breathe (because foetuses do not learn to breath with their lungs while in the womb, the earlier they learn to take in air for themselves once they are born, the better for their brains).
Secondly, it is to test the babies birth reflexes. There are a few motor reflexes newborns must have, which are mostly tested within the few minutes following their arrival on this side of the divide, after spending a great deal of their development stage in a confined regulated zone. A child who comes into the world without being bothered by the immediate difference in room temperature, light brightness, strange voices, etc, raises questions in the doctor’s mind. So he has to devise a quick method to ascertain that all is well with the baby. One of such methods is the upside down spank.
The doctor firmly grasps the neonate upside down around his feet (usually after clearing his airways (nostrils and mouth) and smacks him gently but hard enough to irritate him, on his buttocks. Once he cries, everyone in the room is happy (except the baby of course).
This is not a lesson on post-natal care. I have said all this to encourage you, just in case today you are feeling like that newborn - helplessly dangling and being beaten on the butt for no apparent reason….
You only need to be sure you are in God’s hands, that you are in His will. For if you are being held by the greatest Physician of all times, then it is okay. You will cry a little, or maybe a lot… but you will not cry forever. Your open mouth will force the air in, your lungs will receive the oxygen, your heart will circulate the blood and your brain will live. Like the newborn baby, you will successfully move out of one phase (womb) into another (world). It is called Advancement and the spank will be in your favour. Eventually.
Do not be discouraged. Make up your mind to live again.
- Sista Mercie
＃LiveAgain ＃MediSpiration
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