Lotus birth. Anyone familiar with this?

[3catwoman3]

I was reading an article from Contemporary Pediatrics online today, about lotus birth. I had never heard of this, so was curious.

Essentially, lotus birth involves leaving the placenta and cord attached to the newborn until the cord falls off on its own, in 3-10 days. (I have seen neonates as old as 2 weeks with their cords still on.) Salts and aromatic oils are rubbed into the placenta to help mask odors of the organ as it decays.

I know there is a lot of woo. This seems to be in a category all its own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_birth

[janterry]

1. It's pretty popular in the attachment parenting (AP) world

Many women freeze the placenta - some eat part of it.

[Hekate]

2. Why anyone would want to keep a decaying hunk of meat attached to their baby by a set of veins...

...that could transmit the bacteria of rot back upstream to the baby via its navel I do not know.

[hlthe2b]

3. Exactly... any mammal instinctively knows better than that, but some humans

apparently are BEYOND even instinctive reasoning.

Gawd, I hate these ridiculous trends based on ????

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Other mammals eat the placenta right away.

Either eat it while it's fresh or get rid of it.

[3catwoman3]

5. Based on the replies to my query, I feel comfortable saying...

...that I think this is fucking NUTS! I try, as much as I can, not to be knee-jerk judgemental about things, but this is disgusting.

The Attachment Parenting folks are the ones who don't believe in babies wearing diapers. "Diapers aren't natural because we are not born with them." It's called EC - Elimination Communication. You are supposed to become so clued in to your baby's body language that you can tell when they are going to pee or poop and hold them over an appropriate receptacle when those body functions are going to occur. No thanks. I would not care to spend my entire day focused on that. And what do you do if you need to leave the house?

I find the name Attachment Parenting insulting, with its implication that those of us who do otherwise are not sufficiently bonded to our children.

[LeftInTX]

7. Gross

These parents probably have kids pooping and peeing all over their homes. They probably let their dogs poop and pee in the house too.

[LeftInTX]

6. Cord should be cut ASAP

Too much blood causes jaundice.

Babies have had to have exchange transfusions when their RBC's get too high.

[Orrex]

8. The cord should be cut only when the child is old enough to give consent

[Dave Starsky]

9. I still have mine attached.

Even though it now looks like a shriveled twig and smells only slightly like a dead mouse.

I refuse to be mutilated to satisfy a cultural "norm".