About cord clamping, in my "case study of 2", my first child's cord was
clamped and cut within about 5 min. of her birth, not long after I got out
of the bath. The blood was harvested and sent to a cord blood bank (not for
her or my future children's use, but a bank for donating it...). She was
born in an unmedicated waterbirth in a birth centre with midwives and was
nursed within probably 15 min. of her birth, and was never jaundiced and
never lost any birthweight. However, because we have it doccumented on the
video of her birth that she was actually relatively calm and quiet by the
time we went to clamp/cut her cord (not crying really, perhaps whimpering a
little but no more), and yet she let out a pierceing scream at that point in
time (when we cut her cord), I decided I didn't want to take a chance that
my 2nd could actually feel it perhaps. I know they say it doesn't hurt the
baby but I'm honestly not sure how they figure this out...makes me think of
people saying newborns can't feel pain and circumcision shouldn't hurt
therefore (not wanting to get into a circ/non-circ debate at all, just using
this as a reference for pain feeling in newborns). So, with the 2nd, who
was born at the same birth centre with the same midwives, on a birthing
stool (instead of in the water), I told them ahead of time I didn't want the
cord cut immediately, but wanted to wait and see how the baby felt about it
afterwards, and if it seemed to not make the baby happy, perhaps attempt a
lotus birth...I didn't want to commit to anything. So, she was born, put up
on my tummy, I lay back on the bed, she crawled to the breast (which we have
lovely photos of, by the way...) and started nursing. The placenta came out
within 8 minutes (compared to about 20-30 minutes for my first child, and
only after the midwives gave me some cohosh tincture "to help"),
spontaneously, and was put in a bowl. About 45 minutes after her birth,
when the cord had turned completely white and was no longer pulsing at all
obviously, I pinched it *really* hard between my thumb and forefinger nails
and there was absolutely NO reaction on the part of my child, so we clamped
it and cut it then. She too never lost any birthweight, and never got
jaundiced, despite being my 2nd child to have a different blood type from
mine (I am B+, child 1 was AB+ and child 2 is A+). Both were nursed on
request, meaning about every 5-10 minutes until my milk came in (which was
day 3 for child #1 and after only 36 hours for child #2)...then a little
less frequently than that. ;-) And just as one last little anecdote, I
followed the midwives' recommendation of not doing anything to the cord
stump unless it looked obviously infected. Child #1's fell off when she was
6 days old, and Child #2's fell off at barely 4 days. She did have a tiny
bit of bleeding (spotting on her pyjama) for about 24 hours after that,
however (the 2nd child). My friend, who rubbed rubbing alcohol on a q-tip
around the cord stumps of her 4 kids, and whose cords took 21 days to fall
off, was astounded at how fast mine's fell off. ;-)
I plan on leaving the cord attached again this time around, and have told
the midwife that already, though I have had to change midwives due to a
cross-country move...and this time it should be a homebirth! ;-)
Fio
maman to Sandrine, 8yo, Nyssa, 5yo, and ? EDD 08/08.
--
"Wind is like love. Sometimes it'll come on so fast, and hard, that it will
blow you away. But at others, it will be a soft, gentle breeze just there to
relax you." - Erin Michelle
http://babystrology.com/tickers/baby-ticker-glass.swf?parent=Fio&year=2008&month=8&day=20&babycount=1
http://www.rabais-coupons.com pour des coupons virtuels
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