Lotus Birth

Each day, in hospitals across the country, proud family members cut the umbilical cords of their brand-new babies. It's a rite of passage marking the arrival of a fully autonomous human being. But some families choose to skip the cord cutting. In fact, they leave the umbilical cord and placenta attached to the baby until it dries out and falls off by itself — a process that can take many days.

This practice is called Lotus Birth, or umbilical non-severance. The New York Post recently interviewed Mary Ceallaigh, a midwife from Austin, Texas, about this growing trend.

Ceallaigh describes it as a way for parents to "respect all of what a woman conceives, not just part of it." Following a baby's birth, the umbilical cord is left attached and the placenta is stored in a container or wrapped in cloth until it detaches naturally. The cord usually dries up and falls off by the third day after birth, Ceallaigh says. But in especially humid areas, the process can take over ten days.

Couples may choose umbilical non-severance for many reasons. Ceallaigh claims that there's no wound created at the umbilical site, so there's less chance of infection. Plus, the baby gets the benefit of complete blood transfer from the cord and placenta, possibly aiding in immune system and blood cell development. And the mother is able to bond immediately with her baby, without the invasion of cord cutting. Other cultures around the world routinely practice umbilical non-severance.

The Lotus Birth Campaign

I am campaigning for the birth rights of newborn babies and the worldwide human rights violation of routine immediate umbilical cord clamping!

This harmful practice denies the infant of almost half their total blood volume at birth and has no benefits to mother or baby and becomes routine practice to save on bed linen!

The only time a cord should be clamped early is when the cord has torn and is bleeding, or when the placenta has been accidentally cut into during a caesarean birth for placenta previa.

We know that the umbilical cord will physiologically clamp itself ~ it will close naturally when the baby has self regulated the right amount of blood for them, so why mess with nature?

Placental mammals have been in existence for over 175 million years and homo sapiens for nearly 200,000 years. If the cord needed medically clamping we would have died out many moons ago!

Chimpanzees whom are our closet relatives practice both Placentophagia (eating the placenta for nutritional value) and Lotus Birth (leaving the placenta attached to the baby).

My mission is to raise awareness of the value of the placenta for both mother and child beyond the third stage of childbirth.

Understanding the value of this blood for Stem Cell Research and that the price of this blood is higher than gold, then we should become wise to the fact that the best bank for the blood is the baby at birth!

a cute lotus birth bag.

My favorite lotus website http://www.etsy.com/shop/LotusBorn

Would you consider a Lotus birth?

Lotus Birth

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