Lotus Birth & Delayed Clamping
artwork@Jessica Begin
What is Lotus Birth & delayed clamping?
Lotus birth is leaving the placenta attatched to your baby and choosing to not cut the cord after birth. The cord will naturally dry over the first few days, and placenta will be coated in salts and herbs and placed in a cotton or natural material placenta bag. It can take between 4-8 days for the placenta to natually fall of. You can choose to cut the cord at any stage you wish in this process.
Delayed clamping is when you wait until the cord stops pulsing which is an indicator that all blood has finished transferring from the placenta back into the baby.
What are the benefits of leaving the placenta attatched?
The placenta is like the “commander in chief” of the babies immune system, integrating the mother and child inside the womb and the baby into the world gently outside the womb and delivers the necessary blood and stem cells into the babies body after birth. Leaving the placenta attatched at least until the cord stops pulsating allows all the babies blood and stem cells stored in the placenta to complete their transfer from the placenta back into the baby. The healthy estabishment of gut flora in your baby is determined by those intial stem cells so you really want to let that process of transferring over to be complete.
The dangers of cutting the cord before the transfer of blood is complete, is it risks lowering the immune system of the bay and can increase in hospital birthing scenarios, the chance of the baby being taken away from the mother after birth, thus lowering her production of oxytocin (the love hormone) in the mother which is needed for her to produce milk.
What are my options?
You can and I will support you to, explore, research and put into practice how to.....
Eat it raw
There are many recipes for cooking the placenta as you would any piece of meat. This is particularly desirable option if the mother is weak, lost blood during birth and or experiencing depression.
During birth emergency situations eating the placenta will stop hemorrhaging and regulate her blood pressure instantly if she eats a piece of the prime meat off the placenta.
Leave it attatched as part of the Lotus Birth
Keep the cord for making a dreamcatcher
There a many recipes how we can cook the placenta and or make dried herbal medicines.
We can arrange to have the placenta sent to a homeopathic company or practioner who will prepare, dry and put in capsules for your consumption
For a more in depth undesrtanding of why we would choose lotus bith or to eat the placenta raw or dry it for consumption, you can read Robin Lims incredible book "Placenta the Forgotten Chaktra".
My View....
In my view Lotus birth is the most amazing way we can support the natural and easefull transition of your baby from womb to world ~ your baby having gone through an initial individuation moment in being born, can gently complete that process without shock when the placenta is allowed to dry and fall off by itself.
The placenta is like a limb, a body organ in its own right, and to honor that best we can, depending on the birth circumstances and what is available to us, is a gift for baby. You can actually feel when touching the babies placenta they are having a kinesthetic experience, as if someone had their hands on your leg or feet.
I have noticed babies born of Lotus Birth tend to have a wholeness about them, their field is more complete, egg shaped and sealed in...simultaneously they seem to have a sensitivity about them to the world, a psychic awareness and in touchness that is very moving, individual and obviously unique. There also seems to be a connection to stronger immune systems in babies who were lotus birth.
Most of us came into this world with cords cut, and there is power in reclaiming that wholeness, by visiting the moment in time and surrendering to the death trauma there. Cranial sacral therapy for babies is great way to visit this gently with your baby. I also offer one on one healing sessions for mothers who wish to re-visit and heal their own experience of being born and the moment the cord was cut. See article...for more info..
There is no right or wrong, every mamma must follow her intuition and truth, and embracing the mystery which may or may not include traumatic comings into this world, providing babies being with the experiences they need.
All is deeply well and I feel passionate to be gently encouraging the evolving movement for conscious birthing, as a key to our humanity. I hope to support many women to come in reaching out for this medicine.
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Currently part of the basic doula package
Consultation of options & Support/Planning & Preparation
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Individual consultation and support £40
a placenta bag I made by hand for a lotus birth
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Placenta Healing & States of Wholeness
My love for placenta as an organ and supporting healthy experience with the placenta at birth is deepening once more, as I recognise that the placentas experience becomes the blue print for our energetic relating with one another and between all living things.
Yesterday when I was supporting someone to visit and heal trauma in their family ancestral line I was beginning to recognise that breaks/separation in the line were actually expressing as cuts in the placenta cord at the birth of family members.
I realised/experienced that the placenta is the physical foundation and blueprint from which we bridge connections relationally to one another; in the shamanic tradition these energetic connections are called "cording"; an energetic thread that passes from one person to another. I experience the connection that bridges between all living things like an umbilical cord; and the ancestral line for example can be felt in this way.
Yesterday showed me that the placenta is the physical pathway through which either well-being or trauma is passed through the umbilical connection between things,in this case, from generation to generation; the experience of the placenta creates the platform for relating from then on; between one another and within ourselves, infact all relational experience.
This informs the power of lotus birth methods (allowing the cord to naturally drop off as opposed to cutting it); where we have the capacity to sustain the foundation of wholeness of relating, that passes nourishment between things (which is the function of the placenta) as opposed to preventing nourishment by cutting it.
When you feel the healedness of placenta, it is much like a state of wholeness, you can actually feel the energy of the placenta from your belly button, and whether there is a nutritious exchange occurring energetically between things, from self to environment, and any separation between the two; or whether there are blocks or trauma in the exchanges between things.
Just in itself feeling your placenta in a held and supported way; and bringing the energetic bridge there back into well being through healing, is fundamentally going to change your blue print for relating, within all of creation; not only for you but for all your relations.
The umbilical connection; when in wholeness with form and the environment, extends into becoming gaia consciousness, and can be experienced in the body and with the earth to be the inherent connection between all life as one flowing whole, a living organism made up of individuated parts/entities that sustain together a natural balance, each part contributing with it's own unique intelligence.
If anyone would like support visiting the placenta experience within themselves from a foundation of infinity/stillness, or to visit their ancestral or other lines; please feel free to get in touch with me.
I wrote this post with the support of Baby Sia (daughter of Thessa Sophia and Daniel Reese) sleeping on my legs; resting and relating together from a state of wholeness; informing and sharing through the health and well-being of our umbilical connection. Sia was my first experience of supporting lotus birth; still nourishing us to this day.
"The imaginal swirls with symbols, myths and forms of the unconscious mind of the individual, collective and universe as one - echoing the bridge between eternity and form.
The place where the dream can become known to itself, can be heard and deeply honored and lived.
The lucid dream is essential, formless, intangible and unknowable, yet deeply felt and lived...touching the heart of the dream within the dream, with the love of consciousness.
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