cat and delivery

Question
I brought a stray in that appeared to be pregnant,out of the cold.yesterday 3pm.to 4pm. I noticed her water must of broken,cause she was looser in the stomach, so I watched her and she had 1 baby and her contractions soon after stopped.She has not had anymore and I can't tell if there is more or if the one I witness, the birth was her last.She is acting very normal and eating and caring for her single baby,She attacked my cat,so closed the door.I looked around the house to see if there was dead ones somewhere, but I can't find any.I'm wondering if she has more inside,they are not full term. If kittens are dead inside,wouldn't she still have contractions last night to get them out?

Answer
Hi Darla.  It's very hard to say.  There are a lot of things that may potentially happen.  There is such a thing as a single kitten litter.  This may be her one and only baby.  There is the possibility that there are still more kittens to be born, that there has been a delay in labor, but there is nothing wrong, and the rest of the kittens will be born soon.  There is a possibility that there are unborn kittens who are under stress that will be harmed if not helped to be delivered soon.  There is a possibility that there are undelivered kittens that have died.  In many cases, the mother's body will be able to expel stillborns.  But dead kittens can actually be more difficult to deliver than live ones because they don't respond to contractions.  And depending on how long it has been since the kittens have passed, there may be some swelling.  This situation can be deadly to the mother if the babies are not surgically removed.  Unfortunately, only a vet could really tell the difference between any of the scenarios!

If she's eating normally and taking care of her baby, then it might not make sense to jump to the conclusion that there's something the matter.  But just because my own experiences with pregnant cats have been that there are more complications than there are supposed to be, I would recommend a vet visit for mama if you can swing it.  Just as a human mom would be checked out after delivery, there's never anything wrong with having a new kitty mama looked over to make sure everything's okay.  If anything's suspicious, an x-ray can tell you if there are any babies still undelivered.