How does a female cat deal with her new-born kittens?

As the nine-week gestation period comes to an end the pregnant cat becomes restless, searching around for a suitable den or nest in which to deliver her kittens. She looks for somewhere quiet, private and dry.

In a house, strange noises emanate from cupboards and other nooks and crannies as the cat tests out a variety of suitable sites. Suddenly, from being increasingly ravenous, her hunger vanishes and she refuses food, which means that the moment of birth is imminent – perhaps only a few hours away. At this point she disappears and settles down to the serious business of bringing a litter of kittens into the world.

Some cats hate interference at this stage and become upset by too much attention. Others – usually those that have never been given much privacy in the house – do not seem to care much one way or the other.

The happy-go-lucky ones will co-operatively move into a specially prepared birth-box, with soft warm bedding provided and easy accessibility for a human midwife, should one be needed. Other cats stubbornly refuse the perfect nest-bed offered them and perversely disappear into the shoe-cupboard or some such dark, private place.

Giving birth is a lengthy process for the average cat. With a typical litter of, say, five kittens, and with a typical delay of, say, thirty minutes between the arrival of each one, the whole process lasts for two hours, after which both cat and kittens are quite exhausted. Some cats give birth much more quickly – one kitten per minute – but this is rare.

Others may take as long as an hour between kittens – but this is also uncommon. The typical time delay of about half an hour is not an accident. It gives the mother long enough to attend to one kitten before the next arrives.

The attention she gives the new-born baby consists of three main phases.

First, she breaks away the birth sac (the amniotic sac) which encases the kitten as it emerges into the world. She then pays special care to the cleaning of the nose and mouth of the new-born, enabling it to take its first breath. Once this crucial stage is over, she starts to clean up, biting through the umbilical cord and eating it, up to about one inch from the kitten's belly. The little stump she leaves alone, and this eventually dries out and finally drops off of its own accord. She then eats the afterbirth – the placenta – which provides her with valuable nourishment to see her through the long hours of total kittencaring that now face her, during their first day of life. After this she licks the kitten all over, helping to dry its fur, and then she rests.

Soon the next kitten will appear and the whole process will have to be repeated. If she grows tired, towards the end of an unusually large litter, the last one or two kittens may be ignored and left to die, but most female cats are amazingly good midwives and need no help from their human owners.

As the kittens recover from the trauma of birth, they start rooting around, searching for a nipple. The first feed they enjoy is vitally important because it helps to immunize them against disease. Before she produces her full-bodied nutritional milk, the mother provides a thin first-milk called colost~m, which is rich in antibodies and gives the kittens an immediate advantage in the coming struggle to avoid the diseases of infancy. It is also rich in proteins and minerals and its production lasts for several days, before the mother cat starts to produce the normal milk supply.