Placenta Power: Cutting the Umbilical Cord

Thanks to Hypnobirthing I understood the benefits of delayed cord clamping and when writing my birth plan we decided my husband would be the one cutting the cord that was about as far as my thoughts on it went.

What I didn’t know was that there’s no urgency to sever the physical connection with your baby and that actually the health benefits for baby are HUGE.

There’s lots of good research that supports leaving the baby and placenta attached to receive all of their oxygenated blood in their own time.

The process of separating my baby from me felt hurried and a task that someone else needed to tick off had been done.

Is baby ready? Are you ready? Wait until you’re instinctively ready to be separated. Have someone on your birth team that has the confidence to say “No"t yet”. The placenta can be plopped in a bag or cardboard sick bowl by the midwife and covered by a muslin until YOU decide you’re ready.

Know that your consent is necessary to cut the umbilical cord.

Further Information

Want to learn more about the research? Listen to this great podcast

When some babies are born, especially those which had a lot of intervention, they need a little extra help. Read here about how resuscitation of a newborn with the cord attached makes a difference.

Did you know? The concept of cord cutting was introduced when obstetricians realised that the drugs they were using to put women in to a Twilight Sleep were killing babies? Cords started being clamped to minimise the drugs passing to babies.