Why This Mom Decided to Leave Her Baby Attached to the Placenta For 9 Days

After researching the benefits of cord blood, Vanessa Fisher, a mom from Fort Worth, TX, decided that she was going to take it one step further and have a full-on lotus birth with her newborn son, Ashton. So what exactly is a lotus birth? It's when you don't cut the umbilical cord from the newborn right away and let it fall off naturally instead. The entire process takes between three and 10 days. In a Facebook post, Vanessa explained why she decided to have a lotus birth.

"[I] trust the natural process that God created for child bearing," she wrote. "[It] allows for the health benefits associated with complete placental blood transfer." She also explained that having a lotus birth can help with the bonding process, saying that keeping the placenta attached makes for a more "fluid transition" from the womb to the real world.

Vanessa told POPSUGAR that as soon as she learned of all the benefits in keeping the placenta attached, she added it to her birth plan:

"I found that there were mothers who left the cord attached for several minutes or hours after birth to allow for the placenta to stop pulsating," she said. "This would ensure that there was time for a full placental blood transfer to the baby. The idea really resonated with me because I was already set on embracing a very natural approach to this pregnancy, and cutting out any unnecessary medical interference was important to me. It was very early in the pregnancy that we decided that this would be added to our birth plan."

After delivering Ashton at home, Vanessa quickly grabbed a homemade placenta bag her cousin made her and placed the placenta in it with sea salt and herbs to preserve it. But before she could put it in the bag, it needed to be prepped first: "The placenta, of course, isn't beautiful in appearance, but it is rich in purpose. It was providing life to my sweet baby for all those months! How powerful. My midwife washed and inspected it, then we dried it." After nine days, the umbilical cord detached, and Vanessa hopes to bury it.

Would you consider having a lotus birth? Or would you prefer to have the umbilical cord snipped right away?