Lotus birth

Lotus birth, or Umbilical Nonseverance,is the practice of leaving the umbilical cord intact following birth, allowing the physiological process of the cord substance known as Wharton's jelly to naturally seal the cord within 10-20 minutes postpartum. The umbilical cord then dries and eventually detaches from the umbilicus. Detachment usually occurs 2-3 days after birth.

Postpartum Practices
When Umbilical Nonseverance or Lotus Birth is practiced, rarely in hospitals but more common in birth centers and domestic attendance, integrity of the neonate is highly valued, and maternal-neonatal bonding proceeds uninterrupted. While care providers conduct immediate Apgar scoring and any needed neonatal suctioning/stimulation, most further procedures are postponed until an hour after the birth. The baby-cord-placenta unit is swaddled by the mother in-arms, or held by a father or nurse during maternal suturing.

For Full Lotus Births, the excess fluids are wiped off the placenta and it is kept in an open bowl or wrapped in a cloth, in close proximity to the neonate. The cloth used to wrap the placenta or cover a bowl must allow air through, so that the placenta can air and begin to dry out, or else it will become odorous. Sea salt may be applied to the placenta to help dry it out. Sometimes essential oils, such as lavender, or powdered herbs are also applied for their additional 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, the Igbos of Nigeria bury the placenta right after birth and often a tree is planted over it. In hospitals and global medical centers, common medical training and practice is "Active Management" of Third Stage Labor: immediately clamping the cord once the baby is born, cutting it forthwith, then applying traction to the cord to speed the birth of the placenta, (providing expediency for healthcare time management in busy ward) rather leaving the cord-placenta-baby unit intact to provide for a physiologically gentle transition of mother and baby. 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 sold to laboratories.

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.

The practice gained notice in the yoga practitioner community, when Jeannine Parvati, author of the first book on prenatal yoga in the West [Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth] and listed in the WHO's WHO of Women, 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, and has produced numerous scholarly publications of her research on the physiological benefits of Passive Management of Third Stage Labor.[]

Origins
Although recently an alternative birth phenomenon, delayed umbilical severance has been plentifully recorded in the cultures of the Balinese as well as aboriginal people such as the !Kung. Modern practitioners of Lotus Birth point out that those mammals with whom humans share 99% genetic material, the chimpanzees in fact leave the umbilicus intact, neither chewing or cutting it.

Umbilical nonseverance, or Lotus Birth, 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 Int'l Midwife Robin Lim], and an increasingly popular continuing education topic for licensed midwives and certified nurse midwives. Particularly compelling to these professionals is the absence of healthy neonatal weight loss and breastfeeding jaundice in lotus birth scenarios, as yet formally studied.

In Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, the name "Lotus-Birth" was what described spiritual teachers such as Guatama-Buddha and Padmasambhava (Lien-hua Sen), emphasizing their entering the world as an intact, holy child. References to Lotus Birth are also found in Hinduism, for example, the story of the birth of Vishnu.

Religious Christians and Jews who choose umbilical nonseverance see it relevant to the strength of the visionary prophet Ezekiel who was cast out of his tribe Ezekiel 16:4 of the Bible, "As for your birth, the day you were born your navel cord was not cut."

Photos

 * Australian Lotus Births
 * Photojournalist gallery