Eli5: What happens if a baby stays attached to the mother?

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I just want to know what happens if a baby is delivered and the placenta is still attached inside the mother and the cord is not cut.

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I read that the body, when birth is occurring, shuts down the umbilical tube. That’s why it’s important to quickly get the baby breathing on it’s own.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If the placenta fails to detach then it risks causing a uterine inversion which is a life threatening condition for the mother.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The super blood would continue to flow from the mother to the baby. “Delayed cord clamping” is now a very common practice in western medicine. Science has shown that even just a few more minutes of those extra special hemoglobin, chemicals, nutrients, etc. can be so beneficial to the newborn baby.

I had a baby in the western US in 2016 and I had to request delayed cord clamping. I had a second baby in 2020 and when I requested that from my new doctor, he told me that’s common practice now and every doctor should be doing it (as long as it’s not an emergency situation).

Here’s some more info from the American College of OB’s & G’s: https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2020/12/delayed-umbilical-cord-clamping-after-birth

Anonymous 0 Comments

Even if the cord is not cut, the baby is separated from the mother soon after being born.

The umbilical cord is attached to a temporary organ called the placenta. During birth, the flow of blood through the placenta and umbilical cord stops. This is kind of like how if you get a cut, the blood stops on it’s own. If the doctor cuts the umbilical cord right away once the baby is born, that makes it easier to check over the baby and give extra care if the baby needs it, like helping the baby to breathe. But they could wait a while too.

When everything is going normally, about 30 minutes after the baby is born, the placenta separates from the mother and also leaves the body, the same way the baby did. So even if the doctor does not cut the cord right away, the baby is eventually separated from the mother.