I am slowly telling the story of a newborn who I followed around from 5 minutes after birth until he was about 3 hours old. I'm using his story to illustrate what it is like for two people to be separated at birth, two people who are actually one person, so separation is actually a simple act of violence. The cord is cut but they are still one person. This baby, like all babies in this hospital, is taken away from his mother after one hour. This is the protocol. Many are returned after 2 or 3 hours. Many are not. This little man was returned after 18 hours. And he was not really in need of extreme medical care, isolation, incubation.
He was subjected to 30 minutes of attempting to take a blood draw, then tested and found to be low in blood sugar. He was then put in the incubator for the next bit and given some sugar water to boost his blood sugar level. He had yet to taste the rich colostrum of his mother, that would help prepare his stomach for digesting, act as a laxative and help clear out his system, and of course, provide the antibodies to help him defend himself against sickness. He stays there for visiting hours, and is most likely again checked for blood sugar, which most likely was still low, though I'm guessing. All I know for certain is that he is given back to his mother the next morning. In nature, animals of many different kinds will simply abandon their young after a separation, no longer recognizing them as their own child. Are we so different? Yes we are, and most likely, no we aren't.
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