Veterinarian Dr. Lera (Dr. Lara) describes an urgent case where a cat unexpectedly gave birth in the owners' presence. The video explains labor signs (vocalization, pacing, straining), immediate post-birth care (umbilical cord management, counting placentas, timing between kittens), neonatal kitten care (weighing, warming, feeding every 2–3 hours, stimulating elimination), and prevention via surgical sterilization (ovary removal/spay).
Hey, guys. Dr. Lara here. Today I'm going to be talking about a case that I saw a few days ago. And it was a cat that came in on an urgent basis that we found out that ended up being pregnant and was actually having her kitten without the owners even knowing that she was pregnant. So we'll be talking about how to prevent that from happening if, you know, being caught off guard and some of the care of the kitten afterwards and the moment. All right, so when mom came into us, mom was acting kind of funny, and they had talked about how she was kind of posturing to, you know, almost look like she was pooping. And what they realized was that she was giving birth one from one second to the next. She was being very vocal, pacing, that kind of stuff, letting you know that there was something off about her. And what ended up being was that she passed the baby successfully. And so they brought mom to us to go ahead and evaluate her and the kitten, she did end up having the umbilical cord still attached. And so one of the things that's important, once the babies are out and they are breathing, because some of them may need some stimulation, if mom does not do that by herself, usually mom will go ahead and lick them a lot, and that will go ahead and stimulate. Stimulate the babies to start breathing. But once they've actually started breathing on their own and that kind of stuff, if mom has not chewed off the umbilical cord. I know, kind of gross. But wait till the end, because there's something that's even a little bit more exciting. You will. The veterinarian will usually go ahead and tie off the umbilical cord and remove it. So that way it's less in the way and less likely to be causing any issues. Now, the other thing that we wanted to know when she was here was whether or not that was the only kitten. Now, it's really important for us to know whether or not many kittens there actually are, because if it's going longer than the 30 to 45 minutes that it usually takes for the queen, the female cat, to pass the kittens, then we need to know, hey, she's passed two kittens. There's one more kitten left. If she doesn't pass that kitten, not only could it be threatening to the kitten, but it could also be threatening to the queen or the female cat. And so that's something to take into consideration. Also, you'll want to go ahead and count the number of placentas that typically come out with the kittens. And so usually there should be one placenta per cat. If there is not the requisite one placenta per cat, sometimes it could be that, you know, certain kittens were twins and they share the same placenta. But that is something that you would want to go ahead and keep your veterinarian in the loop about. Because if there is a retained placenta, that could actually end up being something that could be detrimental to the queen. The other thing to take into consideration, the placenta may disappear from one moment to the next. That's because mom was awfully hungry and she ate the placentas. There are some human beings that actually do that themselves. They will freeze the placentas, but that's a whole other topic. That being said, the next thing that we'll focus on is we'll want to get a weight on the kittens. And we'll want to make sure that the kittens are kept warm. Because hypothermia or low body temperature is something that can cause some issues. Usually they are lower body temperature initially just to try and slow down the heart rate and while they're coming through the birth canal and that kind of stuff. But then afterwards, we want to make sure that we are keeping them warm and so that way we can get their heartbeats back up and consuming oxygen and breathing and that kind of stuff. Making sure that we have that weight gives us a good baseline. So that way, when we are monitoring them to make sure that they are gaining weight and doing well, that is something that is super important for us to be able to monitor. If you are not able to have the mom go ahead and take care of the kittens, which sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. You're going to need to go ahead and make sure that you're feeding the kittens every two to three hours for the first probably two to four weeks of their life. I would say closer to the four weeks just to be on the cautious side. Every time that they feed, typically you're going to want to go ahead and stimulate their vulva or their penis with warm water on washcloth or a cotton ball that usually that will go ahead and stimulate them to urinate. If they are consuming the amount of liquid milk, milk replacer. One of the products is called kmr. If you're not getting mom to feed the babies her own milk, that is something that is going to be done through a bottle. And so sometimes people might have some difficulty going ahead and giving the kittens the milk through the bottle or the nipple. You have to be very cautious because if you Go ahead and you make too big of a hole in the nipple, you could potentially cause the baby kitten to aspirate and or potentially go ahead and choke. And so that's something that you have to be very cautious with. Now, that being said, the way to prevent all of this from happening is to be aware of what your cat is doing and getting into. If you have a strictly indoor cat, that'll be pretty easy to take care of. If you have an indoor outdoor cat, then you will potentially go ahead and look at doing something to surgically alter your female cat. Whether it's just removing the ovaries, which is the procedure that we do here, we do leave the uterus intact because it is something that we feel and there are several papers out there now that say that is not necessary to remove the uterus. So we go ahead and we just remove the ovaries and that will go ahead and prevent her from becoming pregnant. It's really important for that because especially for these indoor and outdoor cats, because there are so many kittens that are being born that are not finding homes and it's just not fair to them. So that being said, at the end of the day, you want to go ahead. You want to make sure that if you have an indoor outdoor cat that they are spayed. You want to go ahead and make sure that you weigh the cats or the kittens when they're first born. You want to make sure that mom goes ahead and has X rays done beforehand so that we know how many kittens she has if she is pregnant. And afterwards we can go ahead and monitor how many are coming out every 30 to 45 minutes. And afterwards, if you decide that or if your mom doesn't want to take care of the kittens, you're going to take care of the kittens. It can definitely be done. It's going to take a lot of work. So typically you will need a team of people. You're going to have to be doing it for the next few weeks. And it's something that if you stick in there or hang in there, you can definitely do it. If you guys found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. If you have any questions about anything in this particular video, leave it in the comment box. Otherwise, be safe. Take care and please don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Thanks for watching. Ra.
