Sarah Maya's Lotus Birth

Minutes after her birth, my midwives, Deborah and Lornie finally arrived congratulating us for the unassisted birth. Apparently, if no midwives or doctors were present at the time of birth, it is considered unassisted. Yay! This was totally unplanned but isn't LIFE in general?

They checked on me and the baby and then we waited for the placenta to come out. After 20-30 minutes waiting in the birthing pool I suggested that gravity might help placenta out so I transferred to the birthing stool they brought with them. We waited some more then eventually I pushed my placenta out. 

Unlike hospital procedure, there was no clamping or cutting of the umbilical cord. 2011 CNN hero of the year, Fil-Am midwife, director of Bumi Sehat Yayasan Birthing Homes in Bali and author, Ibu Robin Lim advocates against this. “When you clamp and cut umbilical cord right away, you lose one third of the baby’s blood supply”, she said in her book launch in Mt Cloud, Baguio.  I was glad to attend this and have met during my first trimester of pregnancy. She opened my eyes to what a gentle birth is. And I wanted exactly that for Maya.

I was doing a full lotus birth, the practice of non-severance of the placenta from my baby. We chose to wait until it naturally falls off.  Obviously, there are physical, emotional and spiritual benefits to this practice for both baby and I.

So, my doula, Irina brought a bowl of water where placenta was washed right next to baby. Deborah asked me if I wanted to try having some raw to eat and I agreed. She cut off a small piece which she blended into a banana yogurt smoothie for me to drink. I gulped it down at once, afraid of any foul tastes but there was none.

Most mammals eat their placenta raw after birth and regain their strength. Traditional Chinese have been using placenta for its medicinal value for thousands of years.  Some choose to preserve the placenta by drying and made into pills. This is called placenta encapsulation (which is what I eventually did using a dehydrator). Many doulas and midwives abroad do this as part of their service.

Irina proceeded to place some salt on placenta (I noticed that my baby cried a bit as she massaged salt onto placenta so maybe it was too harsh to do so at that point?) and poured drops of Lavender pure essential oil afterwards. Later on I added dried rosemary. I continued to add salt, Lavender and rosemary everyday on each side of the placenta.

At first I used an adult diaper to contain the placenta to absorb the excess blood but my sister in law pointed out that the lining of the diaper has chemicals so I moved it into a cotton blanket and placed it inside an open basket to help the air dry process. I also changed the cotton blanket daily.

Having the placenta attached to the baby is very tricky. We managed slowly. Everytime I breastfed, I had to skilfully move baby and placenta in basket to one side. The good side is I had lots of skin to skin time with baby since I couldn’t clothe her fully because of her umbilical cord. I read that other couples found a way to swaddle baby with placenta attached but I didn’t get to learn this. Another advantage is that people don’t normally want to see the placenta (which really looks like a huge chunk of meat) so that also kept visitors from coming too soon. This lessens my worries for germ-phobic Virgos like me.

Three days after Maya’s birth, just after having dinner with my family, she was crying inconsolably. I carried her, attempted to breastfeed, and tried burping. Maya was almost hysterical. Then one legged kicked off the almost completely dried out umbilical cord and she suddenly stopped crying. One helper barged in saying that she moved her wet clothes hanging outside indoors. She went on saying that babies usually cry when their clothes were left to dry outdoors when night falls.

I’ll never know if her version of why Maya was crying is true or perhaps she cried because she was saying her final goodbye to her companion in my belly for 41 weeks, her placenta. Maybe it’s a combination of both. We’ll never really know. But I like how the story of Maya’s lotus birth ends. It’s all a mystery.

To learn more about how to do a lotus birth, I highly recommend you read the book by Ibu Robin Lim, Placenta: The Forgotten Chakra.

More resources:

www.placentanetwork.com

Mama Natural's Youtube on Eating Placenta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPd6k7F1ihQ