Pregnancy, birth, pediatrics

A cat usually manages the birth herself, and the best a person can do is stay out of the way. Knowing how it normally goes matters for one reason: it is how you notice when it stops going normally. This section follows the whole road, from the first signs of pregnancy to weaning — the birth and the labour that drags on, caring for the mother afterwards, complications, keeping newborns clean, and feeding kittens that have been left without her.

• Pregnancy A cat is pregnant for about 65 days from the first day of mating, and a Siamese may carry for 71. How to care for and feed her in those weeks.
• Birth Childbirth in cats. Harbinger of birth. Duration of childbirth. Obstetric care.
• Prolonged labor A cat can delay the birth by nearly a day: at the least alarm she leaves to build a nest elsewhere. When that delay becomes dangerous.
• Caring for the cat after the birth A vet should examine the cat 12 to 24 hours after delivery: palpation and X-ray rule out a retained foetus or placenta. What to feed her.
• Complications after the birth Bleeding after an easy delivery is not typical; it follows a difficult one, from tears in the birth canal. A retained foetus or placenta, and what to do.
• Newborn kittens For its first three weeks a newborn kitten only sleeps and feeds: some eight hours a day at the teat, up to forty-five minutes at a stretch.
• Keeping newborn kittens clean Newborn kittens cannot survive on their own or cope with changing surroundings. The hygiene and the care that prevent accidental deaths.
• Raising Orphaned Kittens How to feed kittens if the cat can not feed them. What to do if kittens require lure or artificial feeding.
• Weaning a kitten A cat with a small litter nurses for six to ten weeks. What the weaning time depends on, and how to move the kittens on to solid food.