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Childbirth

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Original poster

What's that thing called where people leave the placenta and cord attached to their baby for about 6 weeks?

57 replies

SpeedyGonzalez · 04/04/2010 20:05

Am intrigued by it. Not in a 'hmm...maybe I'll try it out one day' sort of way; more in a 'Bloody hell that's bizarre! Must find out more' sense.

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rubyslippers · 04/04/2010 20:08

lotus birth

EggcentricaGallumbits · 04/04/2010 20:09

lotus birth.

not 6 weeks though usully falls off in about 3-5 days. and quicker than a cut cord stump falls off too.

you make a nice little wrapping for it, dust it with herbs of some sort and it stops other people from wanting to hold the baby sothey leave you in peace for a few days.

Original poster
SpeedyGonzalez · 04/04/2010 20:09

Ahhh, yes, that's it. Thanks.

OP posts:
DrivenToDistraction · 04/04/2010 20:09

lol. Lotus birth.

DrivenToDistraction · 04/04/2010 20:11

Sorry, dsylexia playing up...

Replied after rubyslippers whose post I miss-read as saying locust birth

Dislexia has brought me many laughs...

liahgen66 · 04/04/2010 20:29

lotus birth story here

A fellow doula. Lovely lady. It's not for everyone but if you read her story, it was totally the right thing for her and her partner.

zapostrophe · 04/04/2010 20:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

bobbiewickham · 04/04/2010 20:37

Lunacy?

iamwhatiamwhatiam · 04/04/2010 20:40

What? So the baby is still attached to the mother for a week?

What if you want to go to the toilet? Or nip out to the shops?

missmoopy · 04/04/2010 20:40

Lotus births and free bleeding! Whatever next?? We will all be weaving lentils soon!

bobbiewickham · 04/04/2010 20:42

Freeshitting?

Freeweeing?

iamwhatiamwhatiam · 04/04/2010 20:43

Oh, just realised the placenta would have been expelled already

missmoopy · 04/04/2010 20:45

bobbie!

AvadaKedavra · 04/04/2010 20:45

I really don't understand it, it's not natural is it, even cats know to bite the cord to break it which I am assuming happened instinctively with cavewomen?

Zany indeed.

Original poster
SpeedyGonzalez · 04/04/2010 20:52

Well, Avada, apparently it is natural, in that it's what chimps do and we share more than 99% of our DNA with them. But it's just the idea of it that, like you, I find zany!

OP posts:
inveteratenamechanger · 04/04/2010 21:02

that blog is sweet, but LOL at "she cooked us up a feast of vegetarian sushi and we then stayed up late, talking until the wee hours, whilst I crocheted away."

darcymum · 04/04/2010 21:10

I knew somebody who did this, her baby became very unwell and came out in some sort of a rash/spots. When the midwife called on a routine visit three or four days after the birth she called the hospital and sent the baby straight in and the doctor just cut the cord off.

I don't know if the two things are connected though.

darcymum · 04/04/2010 21:16

btw she did the covering the placenta with herbs thing, could that have been a factor?

bobbiewickham · 04/04/2010 21:19

Covering the placenta with herbs?

Oh my word.

Get a life.

What a rude awakening these people are going to have in ten years when their herb-placenta-ed kids are baying for an x-box.

Jesus wept.

OnlyWantsOne · 04/04/2010 21:30

DP and I are now suffering with the mental image of popping to the shops with small baby, attached to placenta, and it being dragged off by a small terrier like dog

...

woof

MillyMollyMoo · 04/04/2010 23:12

With DD3 we left the cord until it stopped pulsating, first time we'd heard of it seemed logical and a great idea. She is the only one of three that developed a hernia and infection you give up sometimes, the cat cuts her kittens cords immediately and eats them. The cords not the kittens.

paisleyleaf · 04/04/2010 23:22

That blog, and they kept putting salt on the placenta to preserve it - would all that salt not be going to the baby?

wukter · 04/04/2010 23:24

Oh god - why?
What is it supposed to achieve?

thelunar66 · 04/04/2010 23:39

the baby would be absorbing all that salt and herb concoction though, wouldn't it? That cannot be a good thing.

wukter · 04/04/2010 23:52

Would it though, lunar? I'd say it's a dead organ - it has no source of oxygen/nutrition. Maybe that's why they have to preserve it with salt.
There would be the danger of infection - there is on a "normal" umbilical stump.