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Philosophical Roots of Umbilical Nonseverance
by
Jeannine Parvati-Baker
Author of Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth, Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal, and Conscious Conception.
The Yoga of Lotus Birth
Lotus Birth brings heaven into the home.
Lotus Birth lets the "Tree of Knowledge" (the ancient reverence for the trunk of the cord rooted
into the placenta) remain intact: and therefore our connection to heaven. We can be bringing a
bit more heaven into our homes by being as fully harmless as possible to our children. Foregoing
the severance ritual between mother and baby is a grand beginning toward the noble goal of
family unity. It is supreme worship of the holiness of birth.
Lotus Birth is reverence for life in its most subtle form, and the active recognition of the Life cycle:
birth, death, and rebirth.
Lotus Birth is whole birth, and, in this wholeness the family is blessed. All related to the new,
lotus-born babies feel bliss.
Lotus Birth expresses full respect of the attachment to mother that babies originally have. No acts
to separate this primal unit will bring about a less violent world.
In Lotus Birthing, our attachments are honored. The first precept of Yoga is experienced. Patiently,
attachment is allowed to dry and wither away on its own accord, naturally. Our attachments to
attachment will eventually fall away on their own. We needn't be heroic and use the metal sword
to cut us away -- away from the "organ," or "original nourishment," our placenta. The first
meaning of "organic" is synonymous with Lotus Birth.
Most of us connect "Mother" to "Earth" and to "matter." Trusting that the baby's first "Mother"
(grounding) is the placenta, is basic. Respect for the "Mother's" innate timing to let go will
transform our relationship with the material ("material" comes from the Latin, "mater," or
"mother") world.
Actually, the placenta is "grandmother," and grandmother's name is "freedom." The placenta is
grandmother, and the mother is mama. Why do we have such urgency to cut our newest ones
away from freedom? What is the hurry to cut away the one who first cared for the baby?
The placenta is a being. It is of its own accord. The placenta would have a related (but not
identical) aura to the mama and the baby. Why do we want to cut and get rid of the placenta? It is
as alive as the baby is at birth. It is not just an afterbirth. Again, it is a "being," with its own
integrity. How we treat it and its cord will affect the baby and the mother. This has been amply
demonstrated the entire world over.
The reason, in part, most want to dispose so rapidly of the placenta is the simple fact that it is
dying. It's hard to watch a being die. As you watch the newborn lotus babe come fully into life, the
placenta goes fully into death. We appreciated watching the old ones pass on as the new ones
come in -- such perfect balance. As all living things die, the placenta reminds us so obviously. We
are becoming parents ourselves; we want life affirmed, now that we have just opened birth's
door. New lotus babies do this wonderfully.
Honoring the placenta deepens our wonderful experience of life's greatest affirmation -- our new
holy, whole baby. With this intention, it is advised to keep knives, scissors, and even cut flowers
and cut foods away from the holy postpartum room and instead, requesting potted whole plants
and flowers with roots, and having any foods for the new mother during the transition time
prepared by hand, from the heart.
The Perinatal Psychology of Lotus Birth
A Lotus Birth imparts patience upon the parents at a time when this humbling virtue is so
needed.
It also builds trust that indeed our babies know intrinsically the right time to let go of useless parts
of their being. Otherwise we have the imprint of someone else cutting through our dysfunctional
leftovers. Hence the imprint of the external rescuer, the "expert" who knows better than
ourselves when to sever cords... and separates the baby from its inner connection to knowing. It
lays a template forevermore of a wound... and a "rescue" which the child will unconsciously seek in
other sexually bonding experiences. This is what the child knows on the most primal level: that
parts of it are deemed useless.
The morphogenetic field in our culture is to cut the cord. To let the cord just be builds great
strength of will in the parents. It gives the parents the opportunity to learn a most basic lesson
about their baby, the body wisdom of the organism. With Lotus Birth, there is never any risk of
sepsis, as there has been no injury, no assault upon thee baby's integrity as an organsim.
R.D. Laing, the well-known British psychiatrist and visionary, describes in poignant detail the
effects of cutting the cord on humanity and our sexual relationships in his book Facts of Life
(Pantheon Books, 1976). His work in healing past traumas is one of the most extensive in the
literature on perinatal therapy. He attributes our ambivalence in bonding sexually in part to the
panic we feel when severed from our cord-placenta-mother at birth, our matrix and first experience
of unity.
Dr. Terence Dowling from Scotland has impressive data on the "Tree of Life" which shows up in
many culture's mythologies as being psychologically related to the placenta. I have seen his slide
show two years in a row at the Pre & Perinatal Psychology International Congress. He shows
imagistically the connection in our archetypal minds between the Tree of Knowledge and the
placenta, our first "twin", "soul mate" or relevant other. That the Tree of Knowledge is classically
our bridge to the Spirit and that we cut this soon after birth has profound repercussions on our
vehicle for knowing the Spirit within and outside our bodies, i.e., our breath.
He cites his work in hypnosis with healing anxiety, sexual problems, asthma,, and other upper
respiratory dysfunction and disease etc. with premature cutting of the umbilical cord postpartum.
His work and the data gleaned from the Rebirthing work demonstrates that even spontaneously
born, undrugged babies can grow up with breath problems. Most adults in modern culture only
breathe shallowly. With the trauma of cord severance, lower abdominal breathing is a difficult
thing to do naturally and takes conscious effort. As breath is spirit and breath is life, unconscious
shallow breathing is symptomatic of a shallow felt experience of Reality. See the Journal of Pre &
Perinatal Psychology (available through www.birthpsychology.com) for more information on his
astounding work.
Though Dr. Dowling stops short of prescribing umbilical nonseverance, his substantiated
recommend is delayed cutting of the cord. The longer left intact the better, he says.
As time goes on, we will be hearing more from the medical sciences with the "proof" needed to
change fundamental beliefs. Those of us on the healing edge of family consciousness need not
wait, however.
