Placenta & Umbilical Cord Ceremonies: Ancestral Cognition in a Contemporary World

Photo: Toronto Birth Center

Photo: Toronto Birth Centre

I tin can honestly tell you lot, as a young xx-year-old mother, all those years ago, I didn't sympathise the importance of birthing in a formalism way. Like many women living in Albuquerque, I had planned a hospital birth with my first child. I took all the necessary classes to gear up for labor and birth. We learned about breathing through contractions and what active labor looks similar and when to go to the hospital in childbirth classes. We were shown forceps and vacuums-all tools used to "assistance" the baby if information technology needed help birthing. I also remembered hearing stories from my Dine' family back home that it was our costume to bring our placenta home and bury it.

"Burrying the placenta, -a life organ-in the ground, is done so it can go i with Mother Earth. "

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Placenta Ceremony

Immediately I idea, where does it get buried? Who barriers it? My grandmother had passed on by then, so she couldn't take information technology dwelling? So what was I going to do with information technology? Is my mom supposed to bury it? is she going to come to my birth and take it home for me? How do I tell the nurse that I want to save it? Tin I tell the nurse I desire to salve? Volition they allow me relieve it?

Well, the birth of my girl was quiet an event and by the time she was out and I was holding her, the birthing table that held my placenta was whisked out of the room. I never fifty-fifty had a chance to tell them to relieve it for me. The next solar day I asked the nurses what they do with the placenta'southward following birth, they said it becomes biomedical waste. At that point, I figured my opportunity to bring it habitation was lost.

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Having missed my opportunity to accept my placenta habitation all those years back. It's become a priority to ask Native Ethnic women today if they want to accept their placenta's dwelling. Or at least to have a word about their cultural beliefs around their placenta'due south. It's also pushed me to dig deeper into the teachings surrounding our Dine' placenta ceremonies.

Why is it important to take it abode and bury it?

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If you were to read about placenta teachings, dominant modernistic day culture might refer to our way of taking care of it every bit a ritual, when really it is a us post-obit pre-established cultural construct of the human trunk and personhood, that is governed past the Holy People. It is our responsibility equally parents and family members to guide our children through each cultural developmental step towards personhood in the Navajo world. Burring the placenta,-a life organ-in the ground, is done so it can become 1 with Mother Earth. Female parent Globe is our life force. Intendance is taken with the placenta considering connectedness remains between the child and it.

Where to coffin the placenta?

 There is a lot of debate near where to coffin information technology. Here are some teachings passed on nigh where it's supposed to go:

  •  Buried ii to 3 feet deep due north of the Hogan, under an ash pile.

  •  Annoy whole

  •  Placed under a live bush

  •  Buried beneath a juniper or pinion tree

  • A place of significance to your family unit and "put abroad" with cornmeal /corn pollen blessings;

  • It's of import that it is placed somewhere animals can't get to it, otherwise spiritual harm and sickness could occur to the babe.

Who is supposed to coffin the Placenta?

Different families accept different roles and responsibilities.

  • I accept heard that the father and the grandmother are supposed to have the placenta and bury it.

  •  I have heard it'south the mother'southward responsibility to have it and bury information technology.

  •  I accept heard it's the midwives' responsibility to take it and bury it.

How shortly should I have the placenta and bury it?

  • Before the fourth day

  •  I have also heard that there isn't a time frame.

Honoring your Rights/Rites

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Navigating betwixt powerful cultural systems...

Many Native Indigenous women birth in hospital these twenty-four hours's and if your fortunate, the hospital well-nigh yous is already aware of this cultural practice. Only remember, not all Native Indigenous women live on or near their reservations/communities. Then that means you might have to practice a little extra work to advocate for your cultural right to take your placenta home.

Anyone who has received intendance in a decorated clinic volition know, your prenatal visit might only be 15 minutes. I want to stress how of import it is for you to have this conversation with your doctor or midwife prior to your birth. Existence along coming well-nigh what you want in regards to taking your placenta abode is part of the communication everyone should take advantage of. Many doctors and midwives serving Native American women come from other cultures and places, they as well might only go a xv min cultural sensitivity training via slideshow or video about the customs they are serving when they get hired. Many don't even get that and it 'due south a lot of on the job learning for them.

It's also important to talk about when your placenta might Non exist sent home with you. Sometimes when infection occurres in labor or the baby didn't abound well in the uterus, the doctor or midwife might want to send your placenta to pathology to be looked at closer for answers, following the birth. You do have a right to refuse this, that placenta was apart of you and you have every right to determine where it goes.

Modern Times

These solar day'due south information technology is becoming a common practise in the dominant civilization for women to eat their placenta's. However, afterward doing some research and talking to Dine' women, there is no cultural context to do this in Navajo fashion. However, women who accept done this say

About common manner to consume the placenta after birth:

Placenta encapsulation: is the practice of ingesting the placenta after it has been steamed, dehydrated, ground, and placed into pills.

  • People who support eating the placenta say that information technology can raise your energy and chest milk quantity. They also say it can level off yourhormones, lowering your chances of postpartumdepression and insomnia.

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Placenta Encapsulation

Who Prepares your Placenta for you?

Some doula's will provide this service equally office of their care and work with you. Nevertheless, not everyone is trained to exercise it. What I take seen in practise is, one time a mother has delivered her baby and placenta, she volition tell the nurse to save her placenta-making sure to tell them (nursing staff) Non to put it in any chemical solution (which they do sometimes). Nurses can put information technology in a biohazard bag or bucket with your name on it and place it in a fridge near by. Within hours of giving birth, the doula (if she offers this) will take it with her to start the procedure of making information technology into pills for y'all. Or-if the person in charge of encapsulating your placenta is not your doula, they volition come the same day of birth to become your placenta-to start the encapsulating process.

Umbilical Cords

Umbilical Cords

Umbilical Cords

Returning again to the idea of bringing up a child in the Navajo world, placing the stale umbilical cord in a identify that is considered well-nigh beneficial to the child'south future. "Umbilical cords were intended to exist buried because this "anchors the baby to the earth" (Knoki-Wilson, 8/10/92). Baring the umbilical cord in the Globe establishes lifelong connexion between the baby and the identify. Just as the cord anchors the child to its female parent, it has established a life-long connexion to the mother and the baby, burring it establishes lifelong connexion to the place. In the Navajo earth, we recognize the importance of traditional skills like herding skills and weaving. Burying the string in a field or in corrals for boys or under a loom or door way in the house for a girl- are considered steps in the direction of personhood, to ensure our children are being shaped in the Dine' way.

When should I bury the umbilical cord?

  • Burial of cord occurs correct after it falls off.

Where it should be buried?

  • Boys: coral, field

  • Girl: nether a loom or doorway in the firm

  • Regardless of where the string is placed, it'southward important it is placed somewhere of importance, and not lost or left somewhere within the home.

Honoring Our Bequeathed Knowledge

I ofttimes get asked "What does a traditional pregnancy and birth look similar?"

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Civilisation is fluid and evolving, even as I listen and sometimes read nearly these teachings, they are dissimilar depending on what the exercise is in that location. Even traditional customs tin can exist slightly dissimilar from east to west. From over the mountain to the valley's,-teachings can be different.

Information technology is for this reason I ask expecting women to get back to their communities and ask them what they do for these things. I can guide that process, but really it is as well another step in their parenting to larn these things. Seek out the knowledge, offer tobacco or corn pollen for those teachings to come forth for them. Navigating cultural noesis and adhering to protocols for many begins with offer and request through prayer first. These teachings are gifts and treating them as such, preserves the richness and respect they deserve. But as well information technology teaches a level of humbleness and patience, in gathering this knowledge for yourself and and so existence responsible for it, once you have it. That in itself is a traditional teaching. That is how you award ancestral knowledge.