OB/GYN Dr. Amy Tuteur on a hot new trend in “the world of birth performance art.”
It used to be that women got pregnant with the intention of having a baby. In 2018, among a certain segment of privileged, white natural childbirth advocates, the performance is the point. For example, freebirth, childbirth without medical assistance of any kind, is a stunt. As such, the baby is merely a prop and an expendable prop at that. According to freebirther Desirea Miller:
A live baby is usually the goal. Not everybody has that same goal but if that’s your goal, there’s no shame in going [to the hospital] to get checked.
Lotus birth is another fringe stunt beloved of those who think bragging rights are more important than a healthy baby. It is the decision to leave the placenta attached to the baby for several days until it rots off. It’s an affectation with no medical benefit and considerable risk, particularly the risk of massive infection.
Also stink.
According to Lotus Fertility.com (“Serving your Inner Midwife”):
…[T]he placenta is placed in a special bowl or wrapped in a ceremonial cloth (it is helpful to rinse it first, and remove clots)… Sea salt is also applied generously on both sides to aid drying and minimize scent. This small pillow and its cord are easily kept with the baby, and some women even use the Lotus pillow as an elbow prop during nursing…
Why would anyone leave a dead chunk of meat attached to her baby?
The practice … [is] called “Lotus Birth”, connecting the esteem held in the east for the Lotus to the esteem held for the intact baby as a holy child … Ahimsa, (non-violence in action and thought within one’s self and towards others) … is from the writings and leadership by Gandhi … and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights inspired marches followed soon after.
So I guess the idea is that cutting the cord and getting rid of the placenta are “violent”? While leaving the placenta attached to the baby is non-violent? Ordinarily that would be laughed out of court, but if you call it “Ahimsa” and invoke Gandhi and King, that changes everything.
One bright spark couple gave their infant a heart infection and six weeks on antibiotics in the hospital by leaving him attached to the rotting placenta, which injected bacteria into his bloodstream. Clever.
As the authors of the paper note:
Ironically, families seeking a more natural birth option may end up getting a more invasive experience than a family choosing standard delivery and newborn care.
The ultimate irony is that there is nothing natural about lotus birth. There are no primates, nor human cultures in which the placenta is left attached to a newborn. Lotus birth is a thoroughly modern affectation, one with potentially deadly consequences.
But hey, bragging rights.
Comments
12 responses to “Dress your baby in placenta and bacteria”
But Ophelia, it’s natural. (I predict that sometime in the next decade covering yourself in your own feces will become a thing.)
Arsenic is natural. Black widow spiders are natural. Venomous snakes are natural. Tsunamis are natural.
I’m so tired of the word “natural” being attached to whatever ridiculous thing someone drags out of the inner reaches of their fevered skull to pretend it is a good thing. As an environmental scientist, people expect me to go “ooohhh, that’s so great!” whenever they pull “it’s natural!” out of their ass. I guess most of them don’t notice that second word in my occupational title – scientist. So they might be surprised if I should erupt into a paroxysm of laughter, finger pointing, and occasional cries of “it’s stupid!”. Natural doesn’t mean good – man-made doesn’t mean bad. We must have more sense, and more nuance, than that.
Of course, the laughter stops when people do stupid things that hurt babies. I would never have wrapped my baby in bacteria (and, in fact, I didn’t). I had no reason to reject the medical science of he day, and my son and I remained healthy throughout the pregnancy, delivery, and childhood periods. (And yes, he was vaccinated).
And that bit about calling it by some name either Asian or vaguely sounding Asian? Or, for bonus points, Native American or African? There is nothing inherently bad about western medicine, though of course there have been bad things done with it, and it can’t solve every problem. There is nothing inherently good about “traditional” medicine (and I include that in quotes because lotus birth is so not traditional). The push to appear more open-minded, more progressive, more woke than everyone else can lead to some serious consequences.
Wait. Whut? Gandhi wrote a book on midwiffery? Women gave birth during civil rights marches?
Strange how the moral and political thought of Gandhi and King are cited here. What of the thoughts of Semmelweis, Lister, and Pasteur? Too “Western?” Too “medical?” They were certainly heavily invested in violence. I’m sure the three individuals and their intellectual successors are guilty of the premeditated deaths of untold trillions of innocent, natural bacteria.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure NO mammal does that. Most non-human mothers eat it.
“A live baby is usually the goal.”
What the hell?
I’m not sure I’d call the smell of rotting flesh a “scent”.
@iknklast: Ha, that was weird. My usual list of “things that are also natural” is arsenic, rattlesnake venom, and polio. Now, I’m going to think of a number between 1 and 10… ;)
Just as it was done throughout history, until well into the 20thC. throughout the West, and still is in developing nations. Not coincidentally infant mortality rates were horrendously high.
Non-negative integers are natural too.
And so were maternal mortality rates. These days, most women in the west who get pregnant expect not only to live through it, but also to live long enough to see their grandchildren. That didn’t used to be nearly as likely.
Yes, I meant to say that. Forgot.
I have recently read Bill Bryson’s The Home, which is basically a room-by-room potted history of domestic dwelling. In the ‘Nursery’ chapter he mentions maternal mortality rates in Britain during the Victorian era (when his house was built). The figure he gives is between 1-2 deaths per 100 births, which is bad enough, but because women typically gave birth many times (8+ births was not uncommon) the odds of a woman dying during any one birth (or shortly after through infection, etc) was drastically lowered.