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Placenta possibilities

The Exeter workshop today was a hoot. We spent quite a bit of time exploring various aspects of placental birth - the way that third stage is managed. Lynne Staff, my co-presenter, kicked of the revelations with her description of her very first home birth as a solo midwife, when the placenta took 7½ hours to be born. There were many shocked expressions, mainly because the midwives in the group found this very hard to imagine, let alone deal with.

This is what happens when birth is centred in hospitals - the impatience of caregivers and the lack of insight into the broad realms of normality mean that third stage is usually managed “efficiently” and any delay beyond an hour will be dealt with aggressively.

As Lynne pointed out, if the woman is OK and the there is no bleeding, it is safe to wait. At her home birth, the woman has a snack, had a shower and then a sleep (with the cord tucked up into her panties). The oxytocic had been given but had not worked (t wears off after 30 minutes) so there was nothing to do but wait. Eventually, the time was right and out it came.

After this introduction to the management of the placenta, the conversation shifted to the concept of “lotus birth” where the cord is not cut and the placenta is left attached to the baby until it is ready to drop off of its own accord. Most of the group had not heard of lotus birth at all and there was a mixture of incredulity, shock and amusement at the thought of how the mother would manage a baby with the placenta still in place. Most thought that it would be smelly (it isn’t) and very inconvenient (it does require some juggling). I explained how to care for a baby with an in situ placenta and my description certainly raised some curiosity, mostly about why any woman would want to bother. I will have to make editing the video footage I have of a lotus birth as top priority when I get back to Australia.

Posted by andrea at June 03, 2003 05:39 PM

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