Every mother needs a healthy extended family, and every child needs a mother who is conscious. The Balinese are a very economically poor people, but their extended family system and lotus birth practices are rich in meaning and encouragement. Mothers are totally free to get up and do things doing a lotus birth if they require themselves to - are you thinking that somehow the mother is attached to the cord or placenta??? The postpartum woman is advised to focus on nursing, eating, resting, and cuddling the first few weeks - to have a 'babymoon' - and you don't have to be wealthy to do that necessarily. In Britain and Sweden, there are government home visit nurses, in the U.S. there are postpartum doulas, some of whom volunteer or do trade/barter for services.
Actually, Primatologist Jane Goodall reported that chimpanzees DO NOT sever their cords. The mother rests with the baby for a day or two, moving just for the basics. Chimpanzees being the most "evolved" mammals with whom humans share the most genetic material (and chimps are monagamous and co-parenting), this could be something to consider.
As far as the appeal of natural childbirth goes... as birth is not a disease, it is not necessarily advantageous to interfere with it. In fact, the extent that the natural neurochemistry of birth is allowed to happen determines how well lactation kicks in, and how pleasurable it is for the mother.
Unlike dental surgery, where dead or decayed matter is removed or operated on, a baby is a very complex, living being with highly functional sensory systems, particularly if it is not drugged. In fact, the Word Health Organization has recommends that interventions upon natural physiological birth should be avoided if at all possible, and that unnecessary procedures upon the mother & child should be greatly reduced unless proven to increase health.
In a world of where "making use" of medical interventions is common and we have a 40% postpartum depression rate and where the U.S. is 29th on the global list of countries with the best Infant Mortality prevention, humanizing birth might in fact be an urgent matter.
It seems to me that the point is not about whether people choose Lotus Birth or not, it's about questioning the extreme disregard given to the powerful medicine of undisturbed birth & bonding. It's about waiting 20 minutes or an hour before cutting the cord, so that full attention is given bonding and and amazing newborn, rather than distracted into separation rituals.
Great contextual intro John, thank you. Typo alert: the word is "midwife"
Umbilical nonseverance is a normal practice in current Balinese birth centers served by professional staff, and super-delayed cord cutting (taking place an hour or more after the birth) has been a part of human culture for thousands of years. In drug-free births, immediate bonding is a huge neurochemical event, and it's very easy to hold a baby skin-to-skin with the flexible cord there. Holding the amazing newborn, as it finds its way to latch on for the first breastfeeding (usually within the first hour postpartum) should be the focus - not the distraction of the medically-convenient cord cutting ritual.
If parents wish to cut the cord at some point, there are many hours ahead in which to choose WHEN, and it's the child's human right to have all of its self respected (the cord and placenta are created by the same sperm & egg that made the baby... they are not maternal waste or anything like that...). Tribal people revered the cord & the placenta as the Tree of Life, and it is: without its many months of proper functioning and tremendous filtering protection, that child would not have lived. Show some respect.
As far as the appeal of natural childbirth goes... as birth is not a disease, it is not necessarily advantageous to interfere with it. In fact, the extent that the natural neurochemistry of birth is allowed to happen determines how well lactation kicks in, and how pleasurable it is for the mother.
Unlike dental surgery, where dead or decayed matter is removed or operated on, a baby is a very complex, living being with highly functional sensory systems, particularly if it is not drugged. In fact, the Word Health Organization has recommends that interventions upon natural physiological birth should be avoided if at all possible, and that unnecessary procedures upon the mother & child should be greatly reduced unless proven to increase health.
In a world of where "making use" of medical interventions is common and we have a 40% postpartum depression rate and where the U.S. is 29th on the global list of countries with the best Infant Mortality prevention, humanizing birth might in fact be an urgent matter.
It seems to me that the point is not about whether people choose Lotus Birth or not, it's about questioning the extreme disregard given to the powerful medicine of undisturbed birth & bonding. It's about waiting 20 minutes or an hour before cutting the cord, so that full attention is given bonding and and amazing newborn, rather than distracted into separation rituals.
Umbilical nonseverance is a normal practice in current Balinese birth centers served by professional staff, and super-delayed cord cutting (taking place an hour or more after the birth) has been a part of human culture for thousands of years. In drug-free births, immediate bonding is a huge neurochemical event, and it's very easy to hold a baby skin-to-skin with the flexible cord there. Holding the amazing newborn, as it finds its way to latch on for the first breastfeeding (usually within the first hour postpartum) should be the focus - not the distraction of the medically-convenient cord cutting ritual.
If parents wish to cut the cord at some point, there are many hours ahead in which to choose WHEN, and it's the child's human right to have all of its self respected (the cord and placenta are created by the same sperm & egg that made the baby... they are not maternal waste or anything like that...). Tribal people revered the cord & the placenta as the Tree of Life, and it is: without its many months of proper functioning and tremendous filtering protection, that child would not have lived. Show some respect.