What are your plans for clamping the cord (or not)?

[snozzberry]

I need to do more research on this subject before making my decision. But my doula recommended to clamp 5 minutes after the birth to get the "best of both worlds", i.e. to decrease chances of too much red blood cells (?) causing jaundice but to still get most of the good stuff to baby.

Anyone out there planning a lotus birth? (I think that's the term...)

Help me decide!

[the elyse]

(recommending as a mom not a doula! ) not cutting till it stops pulsing, especially if baby isn't breathing on it's own yet. ask your midwife! as cool and useful as doulas are, there's nothing in any of my doula training that taught me anything about cord clamping.

[birthmommom]

I am planning on letting it stop pulsating before we clamp it.

I think a lotus birth it is cool but I couldn't do it.

Good luck in you research and decision.

[smokeylo]

We'll clamp and cut after the cord stops pulsing. I want that placenta drained, baby.

[LoveChild421]

with ds1 I birthed the placenta and we left it attached for about an hour while I was nursing him and we were just enjoying him- then we took care of clamping and cutting the cord. He had a bit of normal physiologic jaundice- not even enough to worry the pediatrician.

I found this article a while back about a study done at UC Davis on the benefits of delayed cord clamping:
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/...-newborns.html

[nolonger]

All of my kids had jaundice and this one will too. It's the pediatricians' reactions that were diffferent.

The hardest part of this pregnancy for me (so far) has been the blood expansion stage where I'm always out of breath, dizzy, and exhausted. I am NOT going through all this to make a mess on the floor and stain a bunch of towels! This blood belongs to my baby, and doggone it, s/he's going to get every drop!

I'd love to do a full lotus birth but my concerns are giving up the benefits of eating the placenta (although I recently found out without a shadow of a doubt that my "PPD" with Phoenix was misdiagnosed) and my teenaged son's reaction when I brought up the idea.

On the other hand, I still don't have scissors for cutting the cord or a cord clamp, so I may have subconsciously made my decision by deciding not to take any action at all.

[flapjack]

Is there scientific evidence to substantiate the view that too many red blood cells cause jaundice? : I thought that had been disproved years ago.

I had two clamped and cut at birth, managed third stages. One had late-onset jaundice (aka breastmilk jaundice) and literally stayed yellow until three months. I lost 500mls of blood. One was a PPH- my notes say I lost c. 500mls, but that was too much for me with that pregnancy, and I was fainting repeatedly that afternoon. With Skye, we went natural, cut after 10 minutes, which was horrible because she cried for the first time when she felt the scissors cutting her cord, and I lost less than 200mls of blood TOTAL. She was minimally jaundiced, but no more than you would expect for a baby born in late autumn after a fast labour, and it cleared within days- and nobody other than me could see it.
After this, though, I'm not keen on delayed cord clamping. I say either get the placenta out and then cut the cord, if you want to, or clamp straight away, BUT I think that the benefits to the mother of a physiological third stage of labour greatly outweigh the potential risks.

[sunkist33]

We're going to a birth center & they clamp/ cut after the cord stops pulsing

[bloominmamas]

I am waiting to have the cord cut until after the placenta is born. Even though that is what I wanted to do in the first place my midwife said that IF I had wanted to do it anytime sooner (that isn't medically warranted) than that that I should find another midwife. She's pretty adamant about it, but then since I am too then it's all cool you know?

[sarahn4639]

I am debating between delaying until the cord stops pulsing and waiting for the placenta to be born before cutting. With DD we wanted it delayed until stopped pulsing (hospital birth) and in the video you can see the doc holding/checking the cord but clamped and had HD cut within a min, possibly as much as 2 but I don't think so. I would have stopped him but my attention was elsewhere.

This time I think we'll just do whatever feels right at the time. (After the cord stops pulsing that is!)

[True Blue]

I'll be waiting til I birth the placenta. That's what we did with DD and it worked out just fine. Both of my kids had some mild jaundice, and the worse one was my son and his cord was clamped right away.

[Mama2-4]

We have waited until the cord stops pulsating and then cut.

[TrishWSU]

If we get to UC we are waiting until it stops pulsating (or the placenta is delivered) then using some braided embroidery floss to tie it off. If we end up with an induction we are insisting on waiting until it stops pulsating to clamp...man, everyone at that hospital is going to love us!

I like the idea of Lotus Birth, but I'd rather get all the benefits for me and baby from the placenta. I plan to dehydrate it, grind it up and encapsulate it to make 'Placenta Pills.'

[mama_nym]

We're waiting until after the placenta is birthed and then clamping and cutting the cord. My 5 year old dd has volunteered to cut the cord this time around (my oldest son cut Coren's cord, my mother cut Haley's cord, I cut Zachary's cord and the frickin OB cut Alex's cord).

Coren's birth was the only birth out of four where I waited to birth the placenta before cutting the cord - and the only one I didn't need pitocin for post-partum hemorrhaging. I did have a substantial amount of bleeding, but a couple tinctures took care of it!

[Dea]

We're planning on waiting until the cord stops pulsing and then cutting the cord, and then placenta smoothies and the rest encapsulated.

I'm not sure about a lotus birth. I can understand how it was used waaaayyyy long ago when we were still Australopithecuses, but we're not now and well I think that me not suffering horribly from PPD can benefit the baby a lot too. That being said there are different levels of lotus births from what I understand. Some people will leave the placenta attached until the cord dries up and falls off, whereas other just leave it for a few hours and all in between.

Anyhow hmmmm placenta smoothies, any recipes?

[the elyse]

i plan on ingesting mine as well, in some form or another...

recipes!

#1
#2

and some really cool pictures. i'm fascinated with placentas. i'm going to make a print of this one before i eat it. :

[sarahn4639]

Originally Posted by Dea

Anyhow hmmmm placenta smoothies, any recipes?

I've thought about this, haven't made any decisions, don't know if anyone will actually make me one! Any way, if I do I will put a TON of strawberries in a blender, add some placenta (cut into small pieces), ice, maybe some yogurt (somehow yogurt and placenta doesn't sound like a great mixture!) and maybe a banana for more flavor (I just don't really like bananas). Anyway, that's how I'd make one. I like strawberries, they have the right color to help me forget I'm drinking placenta and a decently strong flavor. Heck you should just toss in some blueberries, maybe some raspberries too, that's starting to sound pretty good!:

[the elyse]

i'm going to have a big bag of frozen mixed berries in my freezer. hopefully dh will make me a smoothie!!!

[TrishWSU]

I get such a kick out of those recipes! I can just imagine making Placenta Lasagne and inviting my DP's uptight, mainstream family over...and telling them after they've eaten what the "secret" ingredient is

[flapjack]

Trish, depending on how you prepare the placenta wouldn't it be possible to lotus birth but with part of the whole removed? I'm just thinking that if you do end up inducing (hospital or otherwise) then the stakes for everything get a bit higher. I'm going the homoeopathic route, which requires a cube a bit bigger than a sugar lump, so