Lotus birth!?

[beth_terri]

Each to there own all that but defo not for me!

Don't get how it's considered more natural… animals cut the cord with there teeth and eat the placenta which seems more natural to me? I won't be giving that a go either lol

Hah,I was gonna say try it in a smoothie then x

Urghhhh, now I feel a bit sick…

When I was pregnant I read a post on here about a woman who fed hers to family and friends at a party but didnt tell them until afterwards :O

Omg!

 

[sequeena]

I read about this before Thomas was born. It fascinates me, but no it's not something I would do. I am going for delayed cord clamping next time (and no injection as I retained the placenta).

 

[kissesandhugs]

Each to there own all that but defo not for me!

Don't get how it's considered more natural… animals cut the cord with there teeth and eat the placenta which seems more natural to me? I won't be giving that a go either lol

Hah,I was gonna say try it in a smoothie then x[/QUOTE]

Urghhhh, now I feel a bit sick…

When I was pregnant I read a post on here about a woman who fed hers to family and friends at a party but didnt tell them until afterwards :O[/QUOTE]

What in the hell...? What is the point of that?!?! I can't say I would be too happy if someone did that to me.

Oh! I just drank your placenta!! SOOOO FUNNNNNY



crap...I screwed the quote up. Supposed to go to the one about serving smoothies to friends & family etc

 

[babydust1990]

Each to there own all that but defo not for me!

Don't get how it's considered more natural… animals cut the cord with there teeth and eat the placenta which seems more natural to me? I won't be giving that a go either lol

Hah,I was gonna say try it in a smoothie then x

Urghhhh, now I feel a bit sick…

When I was pregnant I read a post on here about a woman who fed hers to family and friends at a party but didnt tell them until afterwards :O

That is pretty dangerous! Not only from an infection control point of view, but if someone told me I'd just eaten their placenta I'd be extremely angry!

 

[lhancock90]

Did you enjoy the biscuits?

Yes what are they called!

Placenta cookies.

 

[Feronia]

Someone fed her family her placenta without telling them? Woah, that's going overboard! I doubt anyone would be pleased about that!

I was willing to eat about anything after my birth, despite being a very picky vegan. I remember sitting on the floor of our kitchen eating pretzels and peanut butter RAVENOUSLY, and I would have gladly eaten placenta if someone cut it up for me or something! However, I forgot about it and ended up leaving the placenta my freezer for 3 months (nice surprise for guests)! By then I couldn't stomach it anymore, even just to dry it up in the oven and encapsulate it. It looked like a frozen chunk of meat, and since I never had any PPD, I decided to just plant it with a tree instead of getting past my repulsion of meat. That being said, I'm glad I saw it and that one of the student midwives at my birth showed me all the little details of it, and I'm glad I have pictures of it, too!

 

[Incubus]

Each to there own all that but defo not for me!

Don't get how it's considered more natural… animals cut the cord with there teeth and eat the placenta which seems more natural to me? I won't be giving that a go either lol

Hah,I was gonna say try it in a smoothie then x

Urghhhh, now I feel a bit sick…

When I was pregnant I read a post on here about a woman who fed hers to family and friends at a party but didnt tell them until afterwards :O

That is pretty dangerous! Not only from an infection control point of view, but if someone told me I'd just eaten their placenta I'd be extremely angry!

I think most people would be pretty pissed!

 

[babydust1990]

Each to there own all that but defo not for me!

Don't get how it's considered more natural… animals cut the cord with there teeth and eat the placenta which seems more natural to me? I won't be giving that a go either lol

Hah,I was gonna say try it in a smoothie then x

Urghhhh, now I feel a bit sick…

When I was pregnant I read a post on here about a woman who fed hers to family and friends at a party but didnt tell them until afterwards :O

That is pretty dangerous! Not only from an infection control point of view, but if someone told me I'd just eaten their placenta I'd be extremely angry!

I think most people would be pretty pissed!

Massive risk of a smack in the chops I reckon

 

[staralfur]

Definitely not something I would do...placenta encapsulation is not for me either. But I'm a bit squeamish! I think it's great that people choose to do these things.

I love the idea of planting a tree like Feronia did.

 

[babydust1990]

Not everywhere allows you to plant placentas, contamination issues I think!

 

[Feronia]

Not everywhere allows you to plant placentas, contamination issues I think!

Really? I'm not aware of the legality, but mine is just planted in a planter on our balcony -- that can't be illegal! I was worried about crows and squirrels, but they left it alone thankfully and I'm sure it's dry by now.

 

[Randianne]

Initially, this sounds really dangerous. I understand doing delayed cord cutting in a controlled environment, I looked into it myself, because it is good for the baby to get more blood from the placenta. But the cord runs blood both ways. If the placenta dropped below the baby, blood would flow from the baby into the placenta causing the baby to go into shock. That could easily be fatal. Also, I can only imagine the bacteria that would start to grow. Placenta encapsulation seems like a much safer alternative.

 

[babydust1990]

Not everywhere allows you to plant placentas, contamination issues I think!

Really? I'm not aware of the legality, but mine is just planted in a planter on our balcony -- that can't be illegal! I was worried about crows and squirrels, but they left it alone thankfully and I'm sure it's dry by now.

I *think* in a planter its ok its more to do with putting it in the ground. I'm off to google to make sure I'm not just making stuff up I'm sure I read it somewhere!

 

[babydust1990]

I can't actually find anything placenta specific tbh! I've found the UK laws on the disposal of human tissue which states it must either be incinerated or buried extremely deep. Maybe that's where I got it from...

 

[freckleonear]

Initially, this sounds really dangerous. I understand doing delayed cord cutting in a controlled environment, I looked into it myself, because it is good for the baby to get more blood from the placenta. But the cord runs blood both ways. If the placenta dropped below the baby, blood would flow from the baby into the placenta causing the baby to go into shock. That could easily be fatal. Also, I can only imagine the bacteria that would start to grow. Placenta encapsulation seems like a much safer alternative.

This is not true. During the process of birth, the baby's blood pressure drops which creates a pressure gradient from the placenta to the baby, meaning that blood is unlikely to flow back to the placenta. Over 40 years ago there was a paper suggesting that gravity could overcome the pressure gradient, but this could only happen during the first few minutes and is extremely unlikely to occur during normal handling of the baby (however, it was thought that lifting babies over caesarian screens could be a possible risk). The umbilical arteries (carrying blood from the baby to the placenta) close very quickly as the baby's oxygen sats increase. The umbilical vein (carrying blood from the placenta to the baby) stays open for longer, which is why delayed cord clamping is beneficial. Once the cord stops pulsating, no blood will be transferred either way. Therefore lotus birth is no different to delayed cord clamping in this respect.

 

[alaskagrown]

I've heard of this before and I don't like the sound of it at all. Doctors warn against it because the placenta can easily become infected and in turn infect your newborn.

Where do you even get this information? There is no open wound, so it's actually harder to become infected than cutting the cord and leaving the stump.

https://www.rcog.org.uk/what-we-do/...ement-umbilical-non-severance-or-“lotus-birth

 

[socitycourty]

I had thought about doing it. I asked my OB and he just said no, that they would discard the placenta as medical waste. I thought about it for the rest of the pregnancy and then kind of forgot after 2 days of labor and my EMCS where I passed out. LOL

I have heard of people doing it around here, but i'm near san francisco so i'm not surprised by much LOL

 

[Feronia]

I've heard of this before and I don't like the sound of it at all. Doctors warn against it because the placenta can easily become infected and in turn infect your newborn.

Where do you even get this information? There is no open wound, so it's actually harder to become infected than cutting the cord and leaving the stump.

https://www.rcog.org.uk/what-we-do/...ement-umbilical-non-severance-or-“lotus-birth

No offense, but this link doesn't make any sense, nor does it cite anything. It even says that there haven't been any studies on lotus birth. "No research exists on lotus births and there is currently no medical evidence that it is of benefit to the baby." Well duh -- if there isn't any research, then there isn't any medical evidence! Then they go on to say that risks "may include" infection because there is blood, but then they say that there is no circulation, so where would the infection come from if there is no open wound?

I wouldn't have a lotus birth if my placenta wasn't complete, but in the case of a natural delivery with no complications and a complete placenta, I would think the odds of an infection would be almost unheard of, and certainly less than severing the cord. Especially in a homebirth environment, which is what most people do when they have lotus births, in which case the risk of infection is even smaller compared to a hospital.

In my short amount of time googling, I couldn't find anyone who had an infection following a lotus birth. It's really hard to talk about the risks and benefits, though, if there is no research on the subject.

 

[pinklightbulb]

Not for me. But if others want to do it, that's their prerogative

 

[Randianne]

Initially, this sounds really dangerous. I understand doing delayed cord cutting in a controlled environment, I looked into it myself, because it is good for the baby to get more blood from the placenta. But the cord runs blood both ways. If the placenta dropped below the baby, blood would flow from the baby into the placenta causing the baby to go into shock. That could easily be fatal. Also, I can only imagine the bacteria that would start to grow. Placenta encapsulation seems like a much safer alternative.

This is not true. During the process of birth, the baby's blood pressure drops which creates a pressure gradient from the placenta to the baby, meaning that blood is unlikely to flow back to the placenta. Over 40 years ago there was a paper suggesting that gravity could overcome the pressure gradient, but this could only happen during the first few minutes and is extremely unlikely to occur during normal handling of the baby (however, it was thought that lifting babies over caesarian screens could be a possible risk). The umbilical arteries (carrying blood from the baby to the placenta) close very quickly as the baby's oxygen sats increase. The umbilical vein (carrying blood from the placenta to the baby) stays open for longer, which is why delayed cord clamping is beneficial. Once the cord stops pulsating, no blood will be transferred either way. Therefore lotus birth is no different to delayed cord clamping in this respect.

Lotus birth is different from delayed cord clamping because the guidelines for delayed clamping is 3-5 minutes before clamping. I've read instances where the umbilical artery continued to pump for ten minutes and the umbilical vein continued to pump for up to twenty. That will significantly affect the blood volume in the baby and the placenta.

Backflow bleeding is a valid concern. The artery does close off eventually, but the baby's body is already hypotensive because of the loss of the blood to the placenta and the great increase in volume of blood being pumped to the lungs. Risking losing even more blood to the placenta is a questionable practice because a newborn's body can only compensate so much for the loss of fluid volume before medical intervention is needed. Lotus births are almost exclusively home births, so I question if one person is capable of caring for mom, baby, and ensuring that the placenta is staying level with the baby. The baby's blood pressure would need to be monitored closely while still attached to the placenta. I also question if the midwife would have access to blood or at least lactated ringers needed to restore fluid volume if the baby started to go into hypovolemic shock.

I agree that risk of hypotension is small. The much more likely outcome is too much blood volume and jaundice. It's not usually as serious as shock, but it's still harmful and puts a lot of stress on the newborn's liver. The cord can continue to pulse for up to ten minutes and I've read incidents of the vein continuing to work for up to twenty minutes. If it goes that long, you will almost certainly see jaundice and you increase the risk of hyperviscosity and stressing the heart.

Basically, it's hard to get a good balance. Too much blood flow and the baby will get jaundice, and too little and you risk shock. Three minutes seems to be the best time to clamp.