My first reaction when I heard the words Lotus Birth:
What in the world is lotus birth!!!???? You didn’t cut her cord!!!
Ok. ok, ok, I’ll answer all questions as best I can! 🙂 Well first things first, if you haven’t read Jasmin’s Birth Story, please read it!
Lotus Birth:
is when you leave the umbilical cord attached to the placenta and baby until it falls off on its own. That being said, there are many variations and everyone does something different. I know of people who use herbs and salt to preserve the placenta; others use coolers and then encapsulate the placenta to eat later; others make or buy baskets or bags to carry it in; some wrap the placenta with the baby. However you do it doesn’t seem to matter as much as why you do it. The major theme is because of the great benefits there are in keeping baby, cord, and placenta together as long as possible.
Benefits
I’ve noticed recently parents have leaned more towards waiting a couple minutes before cutting, or until the cord is not pulsing, and even cord blood banking has become increasingly popular, but lotus birth is a fairly new and radical idea in spite of its ancient practice and incredible benefits. Mr. P and I were blessed enough to find out about lotus birth through Matt and Angela Monarch of Raw Food World. Thanks to one of their talks and their Conscious Parenting Summit, we were able to learn about this wonderful blessing. The reasons Mr. P and I decided this was just the most natural way was because baby Jasmin had been connected to her placenta for 9 months! And in one second we were going to take that life connection? Babies come into this world of bright lights, learning to breathe, digest food and then SNIP! We cut their cords too. We realized that was too much of a shock for her little body and it made more sense to keep her connected to make her transition into this world more gentle, less traumatic, soothing, and blessed.
If you read Jasmin’s birth story you will notice she came pretty fast and unexpected. We were prepared to receive her but we weren’t prepared for her placenta! Ideally, and for next baby, we wanted a nice basket, rosemary herb and other herbs and sea salt. We ended up with a zip lock bag and chucks! Praise the Lord for my midwife Sheila and my little sister, they helped me birth the placenta, clean it up and bag it! Oh Lord, I pray next time we can have it more special. 
Our experience
Well the cord dried up pretty quickly, my sister and Sheila cleaned and replaced the chucks one other time, and we carried Jasmin and placenta together for about 3 days.In retrospect, another benefit of having a lotus birth is that it should encourage mommy and baby to stay in bed, bonding, and being tended to. This makes it easier to keep baby and placenta together. It can get quite tedious since the placenta adds extra weight and the stiffness of the dry cord makes moving around difficult. We ended up cutting the cord on day 4. I wish we could’ve buried the placenta instead of tossing it 🙁 We left about in inch of the cord and let it fall on its own. Then after it fell there was still a little stub which we cleaned with alcohol until it dried and cleaned out by day 6. All in all it was a beautiful experience. I’m thankful to God for bringing this information to us. I hope that our story can help others as well.
Colossians 3:17 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
our stories are featured in Baby & Child Magazine!!!!
Jenny Pena
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Interesting! I knew it was better to wait til the cord stopped pulsing but I’ve never heard of Lotus Birth before! Thanks for linking up to FF!