How Can I Tell When My Cat Will Give Birth?

Having a pregnant cat can be an exciting if not interesting time, and knowing when your cat will give birth is pretty important. Cats are generally pregnant for 9 weeks, condensing things down considerably from a human pregnancy. This means you don’t really have a lot of time to prepare for the new arrivals, but that’s OK, as you’ll see there’s not really much of a role for you to play here.

Since it’s usuually hard to pinpoint exactly when your cat got pregnant, it can be hard to know with any degree of certainty when they’ll give birth. It’s not like with us humans where they give you pretty much an exact date, and you get little ultrasound pictures along the way. With cats it’s more mysterious and has a more natural feel to it.

You may be thinking that you’ll have a lot to do, or that you need to set the stage, or make a lot of preparations, but you might be happy or relieved to find out that you can sit this one out and let Mother Nature handle things on her own. She’s had a lot of practice with this, and doesn’t need much assistance as it turns out.

How Can I Tell When My Cat Will Give Birth? Answer: You’ll Just Know.

There will be a lot of little things that will all lead up to your cat giving birth, but there isn’t any one sign that every cat exhibits that says it’s time. If you are very close with your cat, you’ll probably have a better idea than someone that is not as connected due to working outside the home.

Top Signs Your Cat Will Give Birth
The most popular answer that has been given is that when your cat will give birth it will start meowing, but not at their regular tone and pitch. You’ll notice a very distinct sound to it, and this will give you the biggest heads up. They may also start showing other signs of being ready, like pacing the room. If you are really in tune with your cat, you might notice other, more subtle signs, like their breathing will quicken, or they’ll just start acting fidgety, or unlike their usual self.

What To Do When the Big Day Comes
It’s nice to set up a comfortable place for your cat to give birth, but you might find out that when the actual time comes she doesn’t decide to use it, and just ends up delivering wherever she plops down moments before it happens. So really, all of the planning and prep work you do is up to you, just don’t be disappointed when you find out it didn’t actually get used or noticed during delivery.

You don’t really have to do much during the pregnancy, in fact it’s best if you just leave the mother alone during the actual process. Nature takes over and your cat will instinctively know what to do. Unlike us humans that have drawn out the process and hospitalized the whole thing, cats can give birth without being taken to the vet, and without a lot of preparation or actions being taken in the moment.

Caring for Newborn Kittens
Your next thought will probably be that you should do something for the freshly born baby kittens you now have. Again, you don’t really need to do much because the mother will take care of things. It’s all taken care of by nature, which takes the pressure off of you as the owner, and allows you to sit back and watch the miracle of life occur without running around like a chicken with its head cut off worrying about what to do next.

Basically the best thing you can do when your cat will give birth is relax, because the mother cat will pick up on the stressed out vibe you are sending out into the room, and that can make things harder for her. Just trust in the universe and know that this sort of thing has been going on for thousands of years before you showed up. It doesn’t really need a lot of involvement from you, so let go of your wanting to control everything in your cat’s life and let this natural thing just be.

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