Lotus Birth

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Lotus Birth is the practice of leaving the umbilical cord uncut after childbirth, so that the infant is left attached to its placenta until the cord naturally separates at the umbilicus, generally 1–3 days after birth (as compared to approximately 5-18 minutes when the cord is clamped and medically cut leaving a stump with a plastic clip). This prolonged contact can be seen as a time of transition, allowing the baby to slowly and gently let go of his or her attachment to the mother's body.

1 Postpartum
2 Modern origin
3 Origins
4 External links

[edit] Postpartum

The common medical practice is to immediately clamp and cut the cord once the baby is born rather than leave the placenta intact. However, during a Lotus Birth, a special cloth may be used to contain the placenta, and the cord is wrapped up to an inch from the neonate's navel. The cloth used to wrap the placenta must allow air through, so that the placenta can dry out. The placenta is first thoroughly rinsed and drained in a strainer. Salt may be rubbed into it to help dry it out. Sometimes scented oils, such as lavender, are also applied for their antibacterial properties.

Different cultural practices use the preserved placenta in different ways. Some people prefer for the child to have the placenta so that it can be buried with the child at the end of his or her life. Others keep the placenta until it falls off naturally and it is then buried, where often a tree is planted over it.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Modern origin

Early American pioneers, in written diaries and letters, reported practicing nonseverance of the umbilicus as a preventative measure to protect the infant from an open wound infection, in an environment of sustainable ethos.

In the 1970s, Clair Lotus Day — a pregnant woman living in California^{[citation needed]} — became interested in the practice amongst chimpanzees of leaving the cord attached to both newborn and placenta until it simply dropped off. If it was a good idea for chimps, she reasoned, then she saw no reason why it would be harmful for humans. In 1974 she managed to find a sympathetic obstetrician and, after her son was born, she took both her baby and placenta home. Over the next few days her son apparently seemed more content which, Lotus Day reasoned, was because he felt secure in his attachment to his cord and placenta.^{[citation needed]} The practice gained further notice in the yoga practitioner community, when Jeannine Parvati, author of the first book on prenatal yoga in the West, practiced nonseverance for two of her own births.

In the 1990s, Sarah Buckley MD, an Australian physician and noted parenting advisor for the magazine Mothering, published her personal birth stories in the text Lotus Birth, and has produced numerous scholarly publications on the topic.

[edit] Origins

Although recently a New Age phenomenon, Lotus Births have been recorded in ancient societies such as those of Native America and Thailand^{[citation needed]}. Whether or not the practice is still common, if it ever was, remains to be seen.

Ezekiel 16:4 of the Bible makes note of the practice in the negative, as a matter of neglect:

As for your birth, the day you were born your navel cord was not cut; you were neither washed with water nor anointed, nor were you rubbed with salt, nor swathed in swaddling clothes. (16:4) No one looked on you with pity or compassion to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out on the ground as something loathsome, the day you were born. (16:5)

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