Let me start by saying that all births are the same and all births are different! It sounds like a contradiction but it is true :-) Out of 62 births in our cattery through 15 years of breeding there have been very few cases where human intervention has been necessary. Here is a description of how a normal birth develops:

As long as a week before the birth the milk can be felt e. i. her nipples feels bigger and filled up. You will also observe that the kittens “fall down”; from being a very round female, no matter what angle you look at your female from, she will suddenly looks as if she has become slimmer, when looking at her from the side. This means that the kittens have “fallen down”, which means that they are now ready to pass through the birthing canal and come out to start their life. The kittens can fall down as long as 2 – 5 days prior to the birth.

A couple of days before the expected delivery date the female starts to look for a good place where she can give birth to her kittens. Most births in our cattery have been delivered on day 65 when counting from when the first mating took place. She will most probably look for some thing that reminds her of a cave or something like that, probably a bit away from the other cats but not too far so she still feels like part of the family.

For many years we have kept the female in another room, either a kitten room or our bedroom, the last week before she was due to give birth. We kept them there during the night or when we weren’t home but when we were home and awake she was with the other cats. The last couple of years we have chosen to make a secluded area in our living room, which is approx. 1, 5 x 1, 5 meters, where there is room for the birthing box, a big litter tray, water and food. The man in the house, Allan, has designed it himself and it’s easy to put up or take down when needed. Furthermore there is a lid that can be placed at the top, which will keep the female in the enclosure when we are not around to keep an eye on her. Here you can see the enclosure without the lid on and since there are kittens the litter tray is a bit small:

We haven’t a piece of carpet in the enclosure any more - it simply became to difficult to keep it clean in the long run!

1 – 2 days before the female is due to give birth she will most likely become more agitated and will visit the litter tray more often; this is in order to empty her intestines which will give the kittens more room when being born. Some will sleep much more than usual and won’t use the litter tray that much, but most females will react as described in the first sentence.

She will also go to the birthing box or another secluded place which she might consider to be better to give birth in, seek it out more and more, go inside, lie down, walk around inside it, scrape in the bedding or the bottom of the birthing box, walk outside the box, maybe stop when she’s half way out, stand as if she can’t decide what to do, walk back into the box, or step outside, lie down on one side on the floor with a high thud and a high noticeable sigh. This is all a way of telling you that she’s close to delivery, but you still have to remember to take note at what time she was mated. Preferably note all the matings if possible, because some females will show signs of being in trouble as early as 2 weeks after the mating J This is based on the philosophy” the more attention one can get the better”J

Sometimes the water will break before the birth has started; sometimes the water will break after the first kitten has been born, or while it’s being born. I have even seen a female use the litter tray and after a few seconds I heard a weird splash from the inside and from the box a female emerged who was wet all the way down the back of the hind legs and filled with litter everywhere. And it wasn’t due to pee she was wet. It’s not always there’ll be a lot of water, sometimes you’ll just see a little bit and then that is all there is to see. Other times you will see the water break many times during the delivery.

But it is important to emphasize that no matter what happens during the birth, as long as your female seems fine and doesn’t seem stressed, then everything is as it’s suppose to be! Your female will tell you if something is seriously wrong, believe you me.

In the following pictures you can see what a normal delivery looks like when you are just sitting on the sidelines observing one’s female doing everything on her own. The female in question is Canberra and it’s her 5th litter:

You can almost see how the body is contracting while the contraction itself, that you can feel as a thickening across Canberra’s body, stretching from the back down to the stomach, is pushing the kitten/s down towards the exit. Some of the water has broken already. The kittens are usually placed in the 2 horns of the uterus; each can contain the same number of kittens or have a different number. All kittens can be placed in one horn; it depends on how many eggs the female has released when she was mated, because it is the female that solely decides how many kittens that will be born. Unless there’s something wrong with the males semen of course.

Usually the kitten is born in a way that won’t show you ANYTHING, really frustrating, but the female does know what it’s all about, even if she gets up and walks around with the kitten hanging from the umbilical cord, screaming it’s lungs out! If she becomes too stressed and doesn’t seem to know what she’s going to do, you have to stop her from circling around and try to tear the umbilical cord, so the kitten can be freed from the mother. Some times you can pull the umbilical cord and the afterbirth will come out as well but even if it doesn’t come out right away it will eventually come out on its own; your first priority is to calm down the mother and get the kitten detached from her. Once the kitten is lying in the bottom of the birthing box the mother will usually calm down and start licking it. Some females starts to clean themselves and if that’s the case you can take a towel or something else and wipe the kitten dry. Just keep the kitten in the mother’s view because then she will almost always accept that you are helping out; she already trusts you 120%.

It can happen that a kitten gets stuck in the birthing canal. If it’s the first birth you are participating in it might be difficult for you to assess if you should try and help it out or let the female do it on her own. Does she seem troubled? Does she have contraction after contraction without anything happening? Most kittens arrive backwards and since they should come head first, because that will make the birthing easier for the mother, this could be the reason that the kittens are stuck. Now it’s up to you to judge if you “dare” pull the kitten or not. Personally I have done this many times but if you have any doubts contact the vet! If it’s possible you could also ask the breeder you have bought your female from if he/she can stay with you the first time the female is giving birth. Maybe the breeder has been in a similar situation and knows how to help the female and possibly tell you when you should intervene and when you should let your female do the work. Even if the sack the kitten is lying in breaks open while the kitten is still inside the female it can still survive even if it swallows some water during the process. You can try to suck the water the kitten has swallowed but it’s not something that everybody wants to or is even able to do. If you do choose to try to suck the water out of the kitten’s mouth and nose you have to remember to gently blow some air into it again, because it is possible that you suck the air out of it too and it might not be strong enough to take a breath if it has just been born.

I usually weigh the kittens right after they have been born, even if they are not totally dry yet. But some times I have waited until the female has finished the delivery: it depends solely on how stressed she has been during the birth. I also write down my first impression of each kitten and if some of them are almost identical in colour, pattern or size, I will write down what distinguishes them from each other. If they look truly identical I will mark the kittens with nail polish. I will put the nail polish on more than one place, usually on one or both ears or on one ear and one hind leg. The female and the kitten will not be harmed by the nail polish in any way.

Even though one kitten has been born there is hardly any fluid present and this is perfectly normal because the volume of the fluid differs from birth to birth and female to female. The only thing you have to be aware of, besides the way your female is behaving, is if there suddenly is fresh blood. If it’s just a little bit it could be a minor upper blood vessel that has broken but if it’s a lot of fresh blood then you have to contact your vet because then there might be something seriously wrong with your female! And you also have to keep an eye on the fluid that comes during the birth. It has to be transparent or vaguely pink, without any scent and also thin. If a yellow or green thick fluid comes from the female’s vagina it is sign of a infection and you have to contact your vet immediately and have him/her provide some antibiotics for your female. REMEMBER to tell him/her that she has just given birth, because there is a huge difference in the antibiotics a nursing mother is given as opposed to a cat that has no kittens to suckle.

Sometimes the female will growl while she is in labour, other times she screams her head off and in some cases we have seen she tried to bite that “mystery” thing that was coming out behind her. In those cases I have put my hand between the kitten and the female and she has been biting in my hand instead of the kitten, normally it’s not a very hard bite and there has never been any tearing of the skin or blood either. Some will make a small “umfh” sound when they are having contractions and their whiskers can turn the other way around, because the muscles in the head can be affected when the female is concentrating on giving birth. It looks very cute if you ask me:-)

It’s not very often the kitten is born in the sack, actually it’s more normal for me to see the kitten come out with the rest of the sack around it, covered in yellowish stuff, which I have been told is a fatty layer you also can see on newborn human babies. Canberra started immediately to remove the sack and free her kitten. She licked him clean and almost dry. Then the afterbirth came as it can be seen on the following pictures:

And then a few pictures of the mother with her children. As shown on the pictures it is almost totally clean in the box already, but it’s not always so neat after a birth:

As shown on the first picture some blood has been delivered during the night. I change the diaper and keep an eye on it to see if there is more to come. A female can bleed and have a small discharge the first couple of days after the birth; what you have to beware of is if it changes colour or starts smelling. I usually put a fake lambskin in the box once I’m convinced that the mother has stopped bleeding.