Cutting the cord: essential or unnatural?

When Aida Stephens found out she was expecting her sixth child, Maia, three years ago, she decided to go for a ‘lotus birth’.

The practice, which involves leaving the umbilical cord uncut, means the baby remains attached to its placenta until the cord naturally separates at the belly button. The placenta typically weighs one and a half pounds and can take anything from three to 10 days to detach.

In Maia’s case the umbilical cord came away after five days. ‘We waited for a few hours after I had delivered the baby and the placenta,’ says Aida, a 35-year-old midwife from Chichester, who gave birth at home. ‘While I held Maia, my midwife rinsed the placenta thoroughly in a bucket of water to get rid of the excess blood. She then drained it in a colander and wrapped it in a towel. 

‘My midwife had sewn me a velvet bag and the day after the birth I salted the placenta and put it in the bag.

‘I basically stayed in bed with the baby for five days. As a busy mother, it’s one way to ensure plenty of uninterrupted time to bond with your newborn, as the placenta definitely puts off visitors.’

Repulsive or calming?

Aida, who has since helped two other women have lotus births, had to persuade her husband that keeping the placenta attached to their baby girl was a good idea.
‘He found the idea repulsive,’ she says. ‘It didn’t go down too well when the placenta leaked through on to his side of the bed on the first night. However, after experiencing it, he is now a big proponent of lotus births. When we had the placenta in the room, he said it smelt nice and was quite soporific. He felt calm whenever he was in there.’

The origins of lotus birth are uncertain, but the first documented modern-day ritual took place in California in 1974, with a mother called Clair Lotus Day.
Advocates say it’s a gentler way for babies to enter the world and having the familiar placenta close by helps newborns feel calm.

Gina Cox-Roberts, a natal hypnotherapist from Telford, chose a lotus birth for her first baby, Ember, in October 2007.

‘My baby started off as a single cell that split to make her organs – and her placenta,’ says the 29 year old. ‘The placenta was as much a part of her as the rest of her body.

‘We felt that preserving an element of Ember’s pre-birth world would make her transition from womb to world easier.

‘The placenta is no more gruesome than a piece of meat in the supermarket,’ she adds. ‘It’s just not got plastic wrapped around it.’

The issue of timing

At the end of the first day, Gina and partner Rae considered cutting the cord for practical reasons. ‘That was the first time Ember cried,’ said Gina. The couple decided the baby had made the decision for them.

‘With the placenta attached, Ember was so relaxed – it was like she had a protective layer around her. It was a beautiful thing.’

Alex Smith, who trains antenatal teachers for the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), says the cord separating naturally is ‘nature’s design’ and a ‘normal, physiological process’.
‘The immediate benefit of not clamping or cutting is that the baby gets her full quota of blood,’ said Alex. If you clamp the cord straight after birth, the baby could get 40% less blood in her body, according to a 1980s study in which cord clamping was delayed.

The optimal timing for cord clamping is controversial. Early clamping has been suggested as a cause of anaemia in infancy, while others believe the increase in blood volume that occurs if the cord isn’t clamped can increase the likelihood of jaundice.

Infection risk

But consultant Patrick O’Brien, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), says lotus births could pose a health risk to newborns.
‘Once the baby and the placenta are born, circulation through the umbilical cord stops within a couple of minutes. The placenta is then dead tissue with blood in it,’ says Dr O’Brien. ‘You can’t get a better medium for bacteria to grow.’

Rubbing salt, herbs or essential oils onto the placenta is not a solution, he adds. ‘If you imagine a steak left out of a fridge, even if you salted it you wouldn’t eat it after a few days,’ he says. ‘Bacteria can spread to the baby, which I guess is why animals chew the cord to separate the baby from the placenta.’

Dr O’Brien also argues the potential benefit of increased blood flow to the baby can be acquired without a lotus birth. You can request to keep the cord intact until it stops pulsating – by which time the baby is ‘getting nothing from it’ – then have it cut.

‘From a physical and medical point of view, there are no benefits [from lotus births],’ he adds. ‘Why put your baby at risk for absolutely no benefit?’


Fight for your wishes

In the UK, lotus births are still so rare that The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has no official policy for it. RCM spokeswoman Mervi Jokinen said women thinking of requesting a lotus birth in hospital should be prepared for ‘quite a lot of negotiation’.

‘A lot of medical professionals would have to go and look for information themselves, they wouldn’t be aware of what it involves,’ she says. ‘Then they would have to discuss the clinical implications with the mother.’

But the NCT’s Alex Smith says more women should consider lotus births. ‘In our culture, the placenta is disposed of as waste matter. I don’t see it as disgusting – it comes from the same egg and sperm as the baby,’ she says. ‘I strongly encourage women to look into it and to know they have a choice.’

If you are tempted by the idea of having a lotus birth, be sure to talk to your midwife about it well in advance of your due date.

The placenta: the facts

- Your baby will weigh about eight times as much as the placenta.
- The placenta acts as a filter between your blood and that of your baby.
- It forms a few days after conception, from the first cluster of cells.
- If the placenta is lying between your belly and your baby, you may not be able to feel those early kicks.
- Delivering the placenta, or afterbirth, is know as the third stage of delivery.