oh, my,ok, forget about Tums, your girl needs a balance calcium supplement after whelping, I use,
Doc Roy's bone tabs,for the puppies as soon as they are born, I give them,
Nursemate ASAP it helps prevent the usual fading puppy syndrome,by helping the newborn get a headstart, a bottle of betadine solution for the umbilical cords, helps drying and prevents infections, I dip a q tip in the solution and apply it to the puppies cords for 2 days, they dry and fall off by the third day.
a good kitchen scale, to weigh the babies daily, LOTS of disposable human bed pads, to put in the bottom of the whelping box while mama is whelping, NO Newspapers please, the ink is BAD for the babies, a
plastic container with a door cut on the side for her to whelp, make sure you make a few small holes on the remaining sides for air flow, they seem to like the protection of the cave like feel.
Latex gloves, termometer to take the girls temperature, even a week after whelping, she could develop an infection very important to record the temp every day, an estetoscope, to listen for heart beats, Fleece strips to mark the birth order of the puppies, a bottle of Alcohol,a small aspirator and practice the right way to use it, a hair dryer in warm in case you need to help a baby get going, A tube of Nutrical, in case your girl needs it while whelping, ice cream is good but nutrical is BETTER, KY jelly in case you have a breech baby, Alcohol, to desinfect all the utensils before and after use. A weak bleach solution to clean the area before and after whelping, Whelping pudding ingredients to make as soon as she whelps. a bottle of clotisol, just in case you have a bleeding cord. Lots of sheets to change the whelping box daily. I buy two or three sheets and a few towels at my local second hand store and cut the sheets to to fit the whelping box, and wash them in a good soap and bleach solution in the machine and dry them in HOT setting and folden and put them in a good size clean plastic bag until they are needed. the towels I cut to the hand towel size I prefer white towels, wash them with the sheets and put them in the same bag until my girl goes into labor, when she is in stage 2 I take them out and set everything I need up, I don't allow anyone in the whelping room with me, because they can stop their labor if they feel is too much going on around them, I try to keep the noise to a minimum and is just me and my girl. REMEMBER the life of your girl is in your hands litteraly, you need to be calm but alert, because if she needs help you need to provide it, and is not a time to THINK you need to know your limitations and ask for HELP if you think she needs it.. a heating pad, for the babies they need to be warm, no sudden temp changes.and last but not least a tube of
oral cal plus, to prevent Eclampsia, she can die if her calcium gets too low while nursing and crashes.
Here is a
picture of my setup, this is all I can think at the top of the morning..
and after all this I hope you have an adult mentor to help you thru all this, whelping is not for the faint of heart, is a very difficult time for mama and very stressful for a caring human.
Best of luck..