12/20/2025
I have had three home births, and out of those three, I chose to have two lotus births.
I first learned about lotus birth in 2016 through a video I came across on YouTube. It featured a Black couple who gave birth in a hospital and made the intentional choice not to clamp the umbilical cord. Somehow, they were able to walk out of the hospital practicing a lotus birth. I can’t remember exactly when the video was posted, and despite searching over the years, I haven’t been able to find it again. But that video stayed with me. It planted a seed.
At the time of my first home birth in 2016, I did not have all of my birth kit supplies. I procrastinated, and truthfully, I was also too timid to ask for help. I didn’t feel confident asking others to support me financially or materially in preparing for a home birth, especially knowing that many people around me were unfamiliar with what home birth looked like, and that its value might not be recognized or respected in the same way as hospital birth (in my head).
Not asking for help led me down an unexpected path, one that ultimately brought me to lotus birth.
Because I didn’t have a cord clamp and only had about half of the supplies I needed (with the remainder supplemented by what my midwife already had), I revisited that video I had seen years earlier. I watched it just in time to educate myself more deeply about lotus birth. When I discussed it with my midwife, she was already knowledgeable and supportive. She explained that I had options: we could either plant the placenta or allow the cord to remain intact through a lotus birth.
Given my circumstances, and guided by intuition, I chose lotus birth for my first baby in 2016.
Years later, in 2023, I chose lotus birth again with my third child. In both experiences, the umbilical cord naturally detached on day five.
What began as a result of limited resources and hesitation ultimately became a deeply intentional and sacred practice, one that honored patience, trust in the body, and reverence for the placenta’s role in birth.
