In the womb the placenta feeds your baby and removes waste. During birth it becomes natures built in resuscitation device. It continues to feed our babies oxygenated blood, immediately after birth, so your baby’s transition from living in water to breathing air can be gentile and smooth.
This transient organ doesn’t get enough credit for all it can do.
Here is my ode to the mighty placenta in all of it’s beauty. Cue the music.
The heart placenta birthed on Valentines day 2014. (I am not kidding!)
Your baby’s home.
Placenta Birth
Sometimes the umbilical cord attaches to the fetal membranes instead of the middle of the placenta. It is a great reason not to have your waters broken or your umbilical cord pulled on!
I am dedicating this post to one of my closest birth worker friends Jessica Austin, doula and birth activist at Birth Takes a Village, on her birthday. We have spent countless hours chatting about the importance of the placenta, umbilical cord and the baby’s best start to life. Both of us dream of a day when all care providers respect the placenta and umbilical cord enough that they don’t cut it prematurely. A day where care providers use the placenta and cord to help them with the baby’s transition into breathing air. I have high hopes of this happening within my lifetime.
If you are interested in seeing more pictures please check my cord clamping article here. Or if you want to see lots of babies being born (out of a vagina) then check out this post.
