thank you all for continued informational support. i continue to think about the concrete aspects of birth -- the latest question is how the cord is cut. is it complicated? do you need to know anything special about clamping it and such? i understand there are different theories on how long to wait to cut it. the most amazing thing i've learned about it recently is that pulsation is observable in it for some time after birth. wow! okay, so anybody got any 101 level information on cord cutting? how was it done in your experience? what can go wrong?
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New York City
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Re: cutting the cord
Sun, February 17, 2008 - 10:16 PMmost homebirthers will tell you to wait until it is done pulsing before cutting it. this is to allow the full blood supply to flow into baby. we burned the cord at my kid's birth. you can see a picture in this tribe's photo section. it takes a few minutes to burn thru. if you're cutting it, just make sure it's tied off in two places, about 2 inches from the belly, then you cut between the ties. -
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Re: cutting the cord
Mon, February 18, 2008 - 7:25 AMthanks, ix-chel. what's the thinking on burning versus cutting and what is the procedure for burning? did you have a midwife (or someone?) to assist you with it or did you do it yourself? thanks. i find i feel so much better as i learn all this stuff and am very appreciative to the many women like you who have been educating me. i will hit the books soon, but somehow it is just so reassuring to speak "directly" -- okay in tribe -- to people about their own experiences.
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Re: cutting the cord
Mon, February 18, 2008 - 9:37 AMcutting the cord is very straight forward as described above. it's like cutting through grisel (sp?) and it's not painful to baby (like cutting hair). sometimes the cord does not have much wharton's jelly and it's very thin and can evulse or break before the placenta comes out. i have seen several cords evulse, but it wasn't problematic because the placenta came out quickly and easily on it's own. once, the cord evulsed and the placenta would not come out. turns out mom had what's called placenta accreta. the placenta had attached too deeply into the uterus and had to be removed by D and C (dilation and curretage; the cervix is manually dilated and the birth products are scraped off the wall of the uterus).
this makes me want to mention again that it's important that all of the placenta comes out. there are a few reasons why the placenta retains. one of them is a phenom called an accessory lobe of the placenta. the placenta will have one or two little mini lobes that are attached by a few vessels to the placenta. when the placenta rips away and comes out, the lobes can stay attached to the uterus. if the borders of the placenta are not inspected properly, it's easy to miss that there may be a retained lobe. this lobe has to be manually removed and doesn't require a D and C normally. in a normal postpartum recovery, mom's uterus contracts and remains hard and firm around the level of the belly button or below and the bleeding slows to like that of a heavy period. if the mom had a retained lobe, the mom will keep bleeding excessively even though her uterus is staying hard.
once you start learning this stuff it's hard to stop. it's so fascinating and the knowledge saves lives. i get so excited talking about it all!
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Re: cutting the cord
Tue, February 19, 2008 - 8:06 PMI myself would prefer NOT to smell burning cord but then I'm al;ergic to barbecued everything!
sometimes not that long after birthing,you can see a cord dry up and get whitish and it "snaps" like a green eban or something, pretty easy. kind of a middle ground between lotusing and cutting...
I dunno, burning seems extreme to me but like I say i have a smoke allergy and don;t even do incense or candles if I can avoid them...and don;t plan to be cremated when I die either though I ove many aspects of Hindu tradition otherwise...
anyway...jsut my own thoughts.
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Re: cutting the cord
Tue, February 19, 2008 - 9:20 PMit isn't that bad, but i guess if you're extremely sensitive to smoke, it might be.
cord burning was reintroduced after the devastating tsunami made sterile tools & birth environments impossible in flood damaged areas. it is a sure way to sever the cord while eliminating risk of infection from dirty cutting instruments.
if a client requested it be done, would you deny her? or would you have someone else do it? -
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Re: cutting the cord
Wed, February 20, 2008 - 5:29 PMwell, I'm not attending births as a midwife in contract. guess if someone wanted to do it, I;d say iyt's not in my toolkit but go ahead and learn the technologies to DIY.
makes sense in tsunami-land.
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