"Lotus" Birth

Ok, first some new pictures...


You might have noticed in the pictures up to now, that Asher still has his umbilical cord attached. Not just the stump, the whole thing! For my non-birth-geek friends and family out there, this is a practice referred to as "Lotus" birth. In the US, this started as a really hippie thing to do out in California, and is still pretty fringey, even for natural birth and home birth people... All it really means is that you never cut the cord, but instead allow it to separate on its own, which usually takes 3-7 days. There is not a good physiological or evolutionary reason to do this, but some proponents believe there may be emotional/spiritual benefits to the baby. The placenta nourished the baby in the womb, and the baby may have an emotional attachment to it, and its nicer to let the baby "let go" of it in his own time. Another reason I've heard is not wanting to introduce any foreign instruments, such as scissors, into the birthing process.

For me, there were a couple of reasons I decided to try it out. I am just plain old curious about it, for one thing! But probably more important, I knew that keeping the placenta attached would mean a very different immediate post-partum period than what I had done last time. With Gregory, we had friends over the afternoon of the day he was born. I did not stay in bed at all. We began going out of the house the very next day, and I think Gregory was about 9 months old before there was literally A DAY that we did not go somewhere, even if it was the gas station or the grocery store. I really believe that this depleted me! So with Asher, I wanted things to be different. I know that I am going to need to be fully recovered in order to be a good mom to both my boys, and the time when I will be on my own with them is coming very quickly! So I am taking a full two weeks to "Lie In." I am planning on staying basically in my bed for the first week, and staying in the house for the second week, also probably mostly in bed.

This is incredibly hard for me! It is the 5th day, and already I am feeling lonely, stir crazy, and cabin feverish! I want to go out and sit with my friends in the park! I want to get up off my tailbone! I want to get back to life! I am having to reign myself in, keep telling myself all in good time, take it easy, you need to rest! One of the hardest things is seeing how Gregory is acting out. I want to go to him, to mother him, to help him deal, but I can't. At least not all the time - I have gone to him when he's been desperately out of control! You can't not go when your baby is screaming and crying that he needs Mommy! But even that has been limited and I've forced myself to let Dan and Grandma Bonnie take over for the most part. I am really grateful for their help, I can't imagine being on my own with both kids yet, but I guess its all part of the transition from being a mom of one to a mom of two. Its a huge bundle of mixed feelings!

SO, doing a Lotus birth is one strategy that is helping me to not overdo it these first days. With the cord attached to Asher, I can't just pop him in my wrap and run around the house or go places. He pretty much has to stay in bed, so I pretty much have to stay there with him. And other people find the cord and placenta to be a little cumbersome, and maybe even a little too personal, to want to handle the baby much. Dan was pretty annoyed when I said we were doing this, because it makes it hard for even him to hold and take care of the baby. He can, and he has, but the bulk of the baby care has fallen to me, I think even more than usual. And I believe that is how it should be. Mommy and Baby should be together. Other people should not be passing the baby around! There is plenty of time for that later, the first few days are just so precious for the mom and baby to bond, establish breastfeeding, etc. With Gregory, we did so much running around, and so much visiting, that when I look back, I really do feel that I let other people hold him too much, and I missed out on a bit too much of that sweet newborn time.

And I do believe there are benefits to the baby as well. I don't really buy into the whole idea that the baby has some emotional attachment to the placenta, though I guess I can't prove that they don't! I think the benefit comes from how you have to handle a baby who is still attached. It is incredibly different! You can't really put clothes on them, so skin-to-skin time is increased. You can't swaddle them, so holding time is increased. You can't move them abruptly from here to there because you have to move the placenta too, so you handle them much more gently and slowly, and move them around less in general. Even I was pretty insensitive to the senses of the newborn before this, but now I am realizing that this tiny baby has never been touched by hands before, or cloth, has never used his eyes before, has never heard sounds that were not muffled by water and heart rhythms. What a shock coming into this world must be for them! And then we bundle them up, snap them into a car seat, and whiz them all around the great big world without regard! No wonder Gregory screamed bloody murder every time we went anywhere in the car. No wonder he was such a crabby, cranky baby, crying for hours every night, having such a hard time falling asleep, and a hard time waking up too. It was borderline cruel to rush him around the way we did. So, Lotus birth = a much slower, kinder transition into this world for this new tiny boy.

When I say I was also just curious about Lotus birth, I am mainly referring to logistics. Also, I guess I wanted to "get to know" the umbilical cord and placenta better! A lot of home birth families, especially, DO something with the placenta. They plant it under a tree or rose bush, they make a painting with it, they dehydrate and encapsulate it and use it as medicine! We cut Gregory's off of him about 10 minutes after he was born, and unceremoniously threw it into the garbage. Oh, that just makes me so sad now. The midwives had a good look at Asher's placenta, as they always do, and then cut a few small pieces off. These were blended into a fruit smoothie, which I drank. Yes, I drank some of the placenta, raw, in a smoothie. Placentaphagy is shown to slow post-partum bleeding and help reduce the mood swings and even depression that can often affect new mothers. (In fact, all other mammal mothers eat their placentas too...) And by the way, I couldn't taste it at all.

Anyway, the rest of it, we wrapped up in a waterproof pad with a lot of salt and some lavender essential oil. We have kept this in a bowl next to Asher, and refreshed it daily. It doesn't smell at all...well, it smells like lavender! The first day, the cord was floppy and cold, and gradually shrank in diameter. The second day, it was getting dry in the middle, but still flexible at the belly button and placenta ends. It basically just got more and more dry, and pretty stiff, though it still had a little flexibility in it. We would just move the bowl from side to side, depending on how we wanted to hold Asher. It was a little awkward but not too big of a deal. We just wrapped the blankets loosely around him. The cord ended up having quite a bit of blanket fuzz on it!

Unfortunately, by yesterday afternoon, which was the 4th day, the cord was so dried out, it had basically shrunken and gotten pretty short. The bowl could really only be within about 12 inches of Asher's body. It was also getting pretty stiff, so that if we bumped it, it seemed to pull his belly button. By the evening, moving the bowl from side to side was really causing problems. If you didn't move it just so, it would twist, and poor Asher would cry. Around bedtime, I got to feeling like enough was enough. It was pretty close to detaching anyway, maybe a day away, but it was hurting my baby. I decided it would be best to just snip it off. But when I did, Asher really jumped and started wailing! He was agitated, restless, crying and pretty much inconsolable for the next 4 hours. It was like a magic spell had been broken. He finally fell asleep from exhaustion, and seems fine today. But something has really changed for me. Even though I've been thinking a lot about all of this, somehow today I haven't been able to stop myself from swaddling him up and lying him on the bed, instead of holding him on my chest while he's sleeping. I even got up and carried him into the living room! Obviously, these are things that would have happened soon enough anyway, but it seems premature. That little stump is still firmly attached, telling me maybe we are not ready for this just yet, warning me to slow down and stick to the plan. I feel a little weird about not being patient enough to let things happen in their own time. This Lotus birth journey has already taught me a lot, but clearly I still have more to learn.

The following are photos of the placenta and cord. They might be a little gross to some people, so view at your own risk!