Lotus birth, is anyone doing this? « Back to Group Discussions

[fayebond]

Hi mamas!

What is lotus birth?  I've heard about it from a couple people but I don''t really get it.  The online things I've found were really vague (something about a cloth bag plus delayed chord cutting and it helping baby's blood supply), and essentially called it "complete cord clamp delay".   I am cool with delaying the chord clamp until it stops pulsing (its been pulsing the entire 9 months, a couple five more minutes are probably good), and am curious if others are doing the same.  And if anyone is doing the cloth bag version, what is with the bag?  

[mamaharrison]

Lotus birth is basally when you leave the placenta attached via the cord until it naturally falls off, which can take days or weeks {I am not exactly sure how long is usual or expected since I have no experience with it beyond knowing what it is}. So the 'bag; is used to keep the placenta in as it it drying up without it getting all over everything ; ) You treat the babe and placenta as one unit still and transport them together--you know, babe in a blanket and placenta in a cloth bag sort of thing. Google can probably tell you a lot more details than I have ; )

I looked into a lotus birth, but decided to eat my placenta instead.

[purposefuldoula]

Yeah, I'm going to ingest mine as well. 

[Jackies]

I'm planning on using a portion for a pineapple smootie and encapsulating the rest if I can afford it at the time.

[fayebond]

ummm, so you leave it on until it falls off, and then you eat it?  I'm confused.

[themothership]

if you do a lotus birth you can't ingest the placenta. from what I've read it takes just a few days for the cord to dry up and fall off with the lotus birth, but you need to treat the placenta (rub salt on it) often because it is essentially a piece of raw meat you are carrying around.

[travelmumma]

As themothership said, ingesting it and having a lotus birth are different.

My understanding-

Eating placenta- you have babe, clamp cord whenever you want (wait or don't wait), cut cord, and consume it as you see fit. You can dry it out and put it in pills (called encapsulation), eat it like you would a piece of meat, cut it up and freeze it and swallow it in small pieces like a pill, and blend little chunks into smoothies!

Lotus birth- you have babe, you have placenta, you don't clamp or cut cord at all. you wrap up the placenta in a plastic bag and then in a special bag or blanket, and it stays attached to the baby until it detaches naturally. It can take anywhere from just a few days to a whole week. But the placenta must be "treated", so it doesn't go off and smelly. You can still consume the placenta this way but it must be handled very carefully, and as far as I know you generally either lotus birth OR eat the placenta, but its up to you.

While you are waiting for the cord to come off naturally you carry the placenta and the baby together in a way of honouring what the placenta has done over the last 9/10 months :)

:) Im eating mine!

[mamaharrison]

Originally Posted by Jackies 

I'm planning on using a portion for a pineapple smootie and encapsulating the rest if I can afford it at the time.

you can encapsulate all by yourself ; ) Lots of info out there on DIY. Don't let $$ stop you--just DIY!

[darkblue0729]

Originally Posted by mamaharrison 

you can encapsulate all by yourself ; ) Lots of info out there on DIY. Don't let $$ stop you--just DIY!

Jackies

This! I have a great tutorial that got me started 5+ years ago that I would be happy to share. Just PM me your e-mail address. I even have some extra empty capsules if you need them that I could send your way.

[fayebond]

travelmumma and everybody, thanks for explaining!  I get it now, and I think I will stick with delayed cord clamping and call it good.  Eating it is just not kosher.  But I hope it works out well for everyone who decides to chow down.  That is kinda cool that you can encapsulate it on your own.  

So, what convinced y'all to decide to eat it?  I'd heard that was popular but if I'd had that on the poll we'd be at like 60% now. :)

[lulubikes]

I know some people who have done lotus births. You put salt and herbs, like rosemary in the bag with the placenta. I've also seen it wrapped in a chux then the salt and rosemary and then put in a nicer cloth bag. People usually wrap the cord up to the baby too. I've heard great things about lotus birth, like it disconnects quicker... but then I also heard that the cord get hard so you have this hard cord attached to the placenta and it gets awkward. The people I know personally have ended up cutting the cord at about 24 hours or so because the hard cord seemed to bother the baby. I have read about people doing the whole thing until it falls off. I heard Sarah Buckley a MD (author of Gentle Birth Gentle Mothering) from Australia talk about it very passionately once. She had 4 children - with the first cut the cord. With the other three, she did lotus. She loved it and thought it was important. She said she asked her oldest when she was still young but could talk (2 or 3) if she remembered her cord being cut. The daughter said it was the biggest pain she ever felt. After that, I was certain I'd do a lotus birth. But then hearing about how awkward it was for people I know, I think we'll just delay it - a lot.

I also want to encapsulate my placenta to eat it. The reason I want to do that is because it is known to help with postpartum healing involution of the uterus, preventing postpartum depression, boosting your blood supply and increasing milk supply too. If you are hemorrhaging - if you eat a piece of it in the moment - supposedly it will stop the hemorrhage. I've not seen this but heard first hand from midwives who saw it work. Even just putting a piece in your cheek will work.

[mamaharrison]

Originally Posted by lulubikes 

 If you are hemorrhaging - if you eat a piece of it in the moment - supposedly it will stop the hemorrhage. I've not seen this but heard first hand from midwives who saw it work. Even just putting a piece in your cheek will work.

This did work for a dear friend of mine a few years ago. She consumed the rest via smoothie over the course of 3 days. It is amazing what our bodies can do!

[Mamabeakley]

I do have a good friend who did a lotus birth.  I visited when baby was about 2 - 3 days old (took food, brought big kids to entertain her big kids, listened to her birth story, etc.) and the cord had already fallen off.  I was pretty impressed - I think they tell new parents the cord stump will detach in 10 - 14 days or something like that.  My babies stumps have never taken longer than a week, but 2 days seemed really fast to me!

We cut the cord relatively quickly (but after it had stopped pulsing) with my first two.  My third, we didn't cut for several hours because my oldest wanted to do the cutting but he had gone to his grandparents' house when we thought the birth would take longer than it turned out to, and grandpa had gone out with the car, so they didn't get back to our house until later.  I'd like to wait about that long again, all other things being equal this time.  

I haven't eaten my placentas.  I've had no particular post-partum physical or emotional issues that it's supposed to help with, so I don't really plan to this time either.  I have taken a workshop on how to do it if you want to, though, and generally we stick it in the freezer until we have the time/energy to plant it under a tree, so we'll probably do that again.  And there it will be should I decide I need to ingest for some reason.

[mamadiamond]

at the risk of sounding really ignorant - how on earth can it be safe to have decomposing tissue attached to the baby? my dd's stump didn't fall off till 11 days pp. an 11 day old placenta would be rotting, no matter if salt was put on it. and for that matter, i've salt preserved meat before, and in order to actually stop decay you have to submerge the meat in a tub of salt, you can't just rub some on. is there some biological thing going on that would preserve the placenta? and if it is still sending nutrients to the baby, how could putting that much salt on it/into baby's body be good? am i totally missing something here?

i'm planning to encapsulate and eat my placenta this time. i had a really hard time healing physically after dd, and bled for almost 8 weeks, so i think it will be helpful. been googling how to DIY the capsules.

[travelmumma]

Originally Posted by mamadiamond 

at the risk of sounding really ignorant - how on earth can it be safe to have decomposing tissue attached to the baby? my dd's stump didn't fall off till 11 days pp. an 11 day old placenta would be rotting, no matter if salt was put on it. and for that matter, i've salt preserved meat before, and in order to actually stop decay you have to submerge the meat in a tub of salt, you can't just rub some on. is there some biological thing going on that would preserve the placenta? and if it is still sending nutrients to the baby, how could putting that much salt on it/into baby's body be good? am i totally missing something here?

i'm planning to encapsulate and eat my placenta this time. i had a really hard time healing physically after dd, and bled for almost 8 weeks, so i think it will be helpful. been googling how to DIY the capsules.

With Lotus Births the cord dries up a lot quicker than it does after being cut. I have no idea why, but that really seems to be the way with each and every lotus birth. So because the cord dries up so quickly, it is just like dry skin that is attached to the babe, so I don't think that any "rotten-ness" would get to the baby at all. If you google some pictures you can see what the cord looks like once it has dried up, and there is no way that anything is getting to the babe once it has completely dried up (as far as I know).

And I have no idea about how you preserve it really! :) But like I said most of them detach after only 2 or 3 days :)

[Jackies]

There is quite a funny Time article with a video halfway down the page by Joel Stein about his wife's placenta encapsulation.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1908442,00.html

[cieloazul]

Ok random thought...maybe the cord dries up so much faster becasue moisture is evaporating from a much larger surface area (i.e. the attached placenta)...sort of like how carrots go limp faster if you leave the tops on them.

[travelmumma]

Originally Posted by cieloazul 

Ok random thought...maybe the cord dries up so much faster becasue moisture is evaporating from a much larger surface area (i.e. the attached placenta)...sort of like how carrots go limp faster if you leave the tops on them.

LOL that is a good example!!!

[fayebond]

carrots will never look the same again.   I bet lotus birth was the safer alternative back when sanitary knives weren't available.  Love that we have so many options today. If I am bleeding out afterwards, all the midwife will have to do is mention eating the placenta and my brain will automatically get all the blood from every pore in my body, it will be that freaked out. ;) But around here it seems everyone is into eating the placenta, even the hospital midwife mentioned it to me (they offer encapsulation services though a third party pharmacy).  

[segolilymama]

I'll be doing encapsulation as well - I thought about Lotus birth last time, but honestly with a newborn to care for, plus myself, I really didn;t need a 3rd entity that needed all the extra care!