Lotus birth, or umbilical nonseverance, is the practice of leaving the umbilical cord attached to both the baby and the placenta following birth, without clamping or severing, and allowing the cord the time to detach from the baby naturally. In this way the baby, cord and placenta are treated as a single unit until detachment occurs, generally two to three days after birth.
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Immediately postpartum, the umbilical cord pulsates as it transfers blood to the placenta from the baby, and vice versa. Changes in the cord's Wharton's jelly then produce a natural internal clamping within 10-20 minutes postpartum. Care providers immediately assign an Apgar score and proceed with any needed suctioning or stimulation, but usually postpone further procedures to allow the infant to start breastfeeding, and to have skin-to-skin contact with the mother. The infant, along with the umbilical cord and the placenta, is swaddled by the mother's arms, or held by the father or a nurse if maternal surgical suture is needed.
Excess fluids are wiped off the placenta, which is then placed in an open bowl or wrapped in permeable cloth and kept in close proximity to the newborn. Air is allowed to circulate around the placenta to dry it, and to avoid its becoming malodorous. Sea salt is often applied to the placenta to help dry it out. Sometimes essential oils, such as lavender, or powdered herbs, such as goldenseal or neem, are also applied to encourage drying, to help to neutralize the smell of decomposition, and for their antibacterial properties. If drying aids are not applied, the well-aired placenta will develop a distinct, musky scent which can be halted by directly planting it or by refrigerated storage after the first postpartum week.
The umbilical cord dries to sinew and after a few days naturally detaches from the umbilicus. As it dries it becomes stiff; parents thus take great care to move the baby and the cord as little as possible to avoid causing it to detach prematurely.
Lotus births are rarely practiced in hospitals, but are more common in birth centers and in home births.
Once the umbilical cord has stopped pulsating after birth, transfer of physical substances is complete. However, proponents of lotus births view the baby and the placenta as existing within the same auric field, with energy transfers continuing to take place gradually from the dead tissue of the placenta to the baby via the umbilical cord as the tissue of the placenta and umbilical cord dries out.
This approach stands in opposition to common medical training and practice in hospitals and global medical centers, which favours an active management of third-stage labour (the delivery of the placenta): administration of oxytocic drugs, immediate external clamping of the cord at birth, cutting it forthwith, then applying traction to the cord to speed the birth of the placenta [1]. The cord blood may or may not be harvested for cord blood banking. The baby's umbilical cord and placenta are then disposed of as medical waste, or, with the mother’s consent, may be donated for research into pregnancy and pregnancy disorders.
Primatologist Jane Goodall, who was the first person to conduct long-term studies of chimpanzees in the wild, reported that they did not chew or cut their offspring's cords, instead leaving the umbilicus intact.[2]
In Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, the term "lotus birth" is used to describe spiritual teachers such as Gautama Buddha and Padmasambhava (Lien-hua Sen), emphasizing their entrance into the world as intact, holy children. References to lotus births are also found in Hinduism, for example in the story of the birth of Vishnu.
Although recently arisen as an alternative birth phenomenon in the West, delayed umbilical severance and umbilical nonseverance have been recorded in a number of cultures including that of the Balinese [3] and of some aboriginal peoples such as the !Kung.
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.[4]
The practice gained notice in the yoga practitioner community when Jeannine Parvati Baker, author of the first book on prenatal yoga in the West, Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth, practiced umbilical nonseverance for two of her own births, seeing it as a practical application of the yogic value of ahimsa as well as the core yoga teaching inherent in the primal bonding process that "all attachments will fall away of their own accord."
In the 1990s, Sarah Buckley MD, an Australian family physician and noted parenting advisor for the magazine Mothering, published her personal birth stories in the text Lotus Birth; she has produced numerous scholarly publications of her research on the physiological benefits of passive management of third-stage labor.[5]
Umbilical nonseverance is an informed choice option currently practiced by a minority of homebirth and hospital birth families (see the research of Sarah Buckley, M.D. and international midwife Robin Lim), and an increasingly popular continuing education topic for licensed midwives and certified nurse midwives in publications such as the magazines Midwifery Today and Mothering. Particularly compelling to these professionals is the reported absence of healthy neonatal weight loss and breastfeeding jaundice in lotus birth scenarios; studies of this correlation have indicated a significantly decreased risk of jaundice in infants where the umbilical cord is clamped later than 60 seconds after birth.[6]