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Friday, January 9, 2009

A Lotus Birth


I have now learned something new... Lotus Births.

I did not know this existed till about 2 weeks ago, when I read the term online. I did not know what it was & vowed to research it, finding this page: Lotus Birth Questions

Very interesting, in that the placenta is left attached to the cord, which is left attached to the baby, until it falls off naturally!! Usually in 2-3 days! That is signifigantly shorter than the 1-2 weeks to wait for the severed, dried-up cord to fall off!

It is also referred to as "non-severence". It seemingly has health benefits, which I do not doubt for a second. The article linked above says that it is "cosmetic" & for the parents' convenience to remove the placenta.

If I had another child, I will most surely leave the cord attached until after the placenta is expulsed. No question!

I like learning all kinds of things about birth & thought I would share this with the bloggy world.

Thanks for reading!

1 comments:

Cherylyn said...

This is the first I've heard about Lotus Birth, and it definitely sounds interesting. I learned something else just yesterday about the cord, and that is if it has been clamped and cut, you can actually wash it with clean water and it will usually fall off within a few days, rather than a week or more.

Not too long ago (within the last 5-10 years) hospitals used to tell mothers to swab the cord with alcohol to help it dry up and fall off. I followed their instructions and it was a nuisance and didn't seem to make any difference to the cord. They now instruct mothers to do nothing but to keep the cord dry. This advice I was given to wash the cord goes against hospital instruction, but it's really interesting.