Lotus Birth..what a oncall midwife told me.....

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

I am going to a free standing birth center and needed to be checked over the weekend....I am 30 weeks and flew from Germany to Mexico City and came down with the flu 2 days after getting home...was having lots of pressure....any ways...a on call mw checked me and all was fine...she is older...said she's been a mw for over 25 years....worked all over the world....So i felt this was a good mw to ask about Lotus birth....and i was going for it...until she said this. Now i'm starting to wonder if maybe i shouldnt.

She said...."well, delayed cord clamping is a good thing....however keeping the placenta attached to the baby for however many days...takes attention away from the baby and puts attention on the placenta."

So now i'm thinking if I follow through with keeping the placenta attached...is it really going to take away attention from the baby...am I going to be worried about the placenta and not as much as the baby?

What are your thoughts?

[lexapurple]

Since placenta will need some attention while it is still attached I think that she is into something.

You will need to make sure when you move your baby that placenta is moved as well. When you nurse you would need to worry about positioning placenta so baby is comfortable, etc. It can be done but it will require extra attention.

I have no experience with Lotus Birth but I was interested in it. I came to a decision that we will make a compromise. We will keep placenta attached for as long as we stay in the birthing center and get it cut off right before we are ready to leave. This way the baby gets most of the benefits and we do not have to deal with placenta on top of the baby.

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by lexapurple 

Since placenta will need some attention while it is still attached I think that she is into something.

You will need to make sure when you move your baby that placenta is moved as well. When you nurse you would need to worry about positioning placenta so baby is comfortable, etc. It can be done but it will require extra attention.

I think that is a good description of how it can be a hassle.

I read about it in the book "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering" by Dr. Sarah Buckley. I know she said they had a bag for it - I think they salted it or something to preserve it. Not sure if that needed to be done on a regularly basis, or only once. So there's another way the placenta has to be "taken care of."

Not only that, but most people will think it's bizarre & gross. Heck, I'm pretty crunchy & I think it's weird - but mostly because I see absolutely ZERO physiologically benefit to it. Once the placenta is born, it provides no more value to the baby anymore. So I just don't see the point.

Anyway, so I'm sure most of my relatives would be cringing at having to hold the placenta baggie while holding the baby too. & personally I LIKE the fact that friends & relatives come to visit & hold the baby! I think that's a good thing.

Hey, not that I'm saying make a decision based on what friends & relatives think - but it WOULD be a way in which the placenta would take some attention away from the baby.

[suzywan]

Is there any mammalian species that leaves the placenta attached til it falls off?

[Italiamom]

I don't know of any mammals that leave the placenta attached.  Don't most eat it?

We left DS attached to the placenta for about an hour after I delivered it.  There was clearly no blood in the cord at all...  It was all white and cold.  We burnt it instead of cutting it (Google cord burning if you're interested), and then I had the placenta encapsulated.

To each mama her own, but I can't imagine how much harder it would make it postpartum.  I'd love to hear from mamas here who have done lotus birth with a second or third child...  Was it harder than your first where you weren't toting around the placenta too?  I wouldn't choose lotus birth for myself, but I certainly understand treating the placenta as something sacred...

[Italiamom]

Originally Posted by MegBoz 
Anyway, so I'm sure most of my relatives would be cringing at having to hold the placenta baggie while holding the baby too. & personally I LIKE the fact that friends & relatives come to visit & hold the baby! I think that's a good thing.

But if you were a mama who'd rather have baby all to herself, this might be the perfect ploy!  I can just see MIL's face now

(Not to dog on the decision to do a lotus birth.  Again, to each mama her own!!  But MIL would NOT understand at all...)

[Smokering]

AFAIK, lotus birth is done for spiritual reasons - I don't think there's meant to be any physiological benefit to it. Certainly I can't think of any mainstream-scientific reason why leaving the placenta attached would be a good thing. OP, do you have any spiritual reasons for doing lotus birth? If not, frankly, I just wouldn't - I can't see any reason to, and yes, it would gross a lot of people out. (I ate my placenta, and still find the thought of lotus birth kinda icky!) If you do, well, plenty of people have done it, so I guess the inconvenience isn't insurmountable. I guess if you have casual visitors, you could swathe the whole baby and placenta up in a big loose wrap and hold him yourself - they wouldn't get to cuddle him, but at least they'd remember his cute face, not "aargh, he has a placenta attached to him!".

[Cyllya]

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard babies who don't have any drugs in their system will start to cry when the cord is cut. If it causes them pain to have the cord cut, I'd call that a point in favor of lotus birth.
 

Originally Posted by suzywan 

Is there any mammalian species that leaves the placenta attached til it falls off?

Chimpanzees. That's actually where humans got the idea!

[GoBecGo]

My completely undrugged DD had a knotted cord, she didn't STOP crying until we cut her cord (22mins after birth, when i finally remembered to push the placenta out).  Within a second or two of the cord being cut she looked at me, engaged, and began to nurse.  Arguably the knot hurt more than the scissors but i can't think how, especially since she must have done the knot about 7 months previously and even if it bothered her a lot during labour it can't have been bothering her physiologically once she was born given she was breathing before she was fully born and was already salmon pink head to foot by the time her feet were out.  I think most undrugged babies who cry with the cord being cut it's because the cord is cut a few seconds after they are born, when they were going to cry anyway.

I think if you're ok to keep the baby in the same place for the 7-10 days until the placenta drops off, and are ok with not moving him/her about too much so that you don't have to cart the placenta too far it might be fine.  If you want to go out, move to other rooms, bathe together and etc. it might be a huge hassle.  And i do agree that simply because lotus is unusual if you do it of course people are going to have a whole lot of feelings about the placenta which obscure their feelings about the baby, simply because one they were expecting and the other they weren't.  I have to be honest, i do not get it.

And this suggests that at least some chimps eat their placentas.
 

Originally Posted by Cyllya 

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard babies who don't have any drugs in their system will start to cry when the cord is cut. If it causes them pain to have the cord cut, I'd call that a point in favor of lotus birth.
 

Originally Posted by suzywan 

Is there any mammalian species that leaves the placenta attached til it falls off?

Chimpanzees. That's actually where humans got the idea!

[womenswisdom]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo 

I think if you're ok to keep the baby in the same place for the 7-10 days until the placenta drops off, and are ok with not moving him/her about too much so that you don't have to cart the placenta too far it might be fine.  If you want to go out, move to other rooms, bathe together and etc. it might be a huge hassle. 

My understanding is that when a lotus birth is done, the placenta usually detaches around 3-4 days after birth.  And you can def. bathe with the placenta still attached.

[Sudonk]

Originally Posted by Cyllya 

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard babies who don't have any drugs in their system will start to cry when the cord is cut. If it causes them pain to have the cord cut, I'd call that a point in favor of lotus birth.
 

There are no nerves running through the cord, so there is no reason to be concerned that cutting the cord will cause the baby pain and more than it will cause the mother pain.  There may be times when someone is too rough while cutting the cord and jostles it, causing discomfort at the imbilicus.  But I would think that discomfort would be more common over the several days of being attached to the placenta following a lotus birth, so I don't know that that is a logical arguement in favor of lotus birthing. 

And for what it's worth, none of the babies I've seen at this point of their lives have shown any sign of knowing or caring about the cutting of their cord, and they have all been unmedicated. 

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by Sudonk 

There may be times when someone is too rough while cutting the cord and jostles it, causing discomfort at the imbilicus.  But I would think that discomfort would be more common over the several days of being attached to the placenta following a lotus birth, so I don't know that that is a logical arguement in favor of lotus birthing. 

Good point - that makes sense.

I also had an unmedicated birth & I don't remember my DS reacting at all when DH cut the cord. I remember him just looking at me - not crying at all, just checking me out, ha! 

[sam pearson]

The attention the placenta needs is minimal.  After the initial washing we found it was a quick and easy process to repack the salt and rewrap the placenta each day.  This can be done by the mother but if she is unable to or if she prefers another birth support person such as the father or a doula might take on this role.  My almost 10yo son was the one who cared for his baby sister's placenta and it took him 5 minutes a day and I think it helped him feel included.

As for managing the placenta when moving baby around it was not more difficult than keeping them together.  When sitting I placed the placenta next to us on the couch, when in bed it was placed next to bub on the bed, when walking around I placed my daughter's placenta on her tummy and carried them both. 

When my Dad came to visit and held his grandaughter they were bundled together in a bunny rug and I he was unaware that the placenta was even there.