One of the biggest causes of maternal mortality is postpartum hemorrhage. Interestingly, animals very rarely hemorrhage after giving birth. Are you wondering what the difference is between human birth and other mammalian births? Using the placenta! Animals innately consume their placenta after they give birth making postpartum hemorrhage a rare occurrence.
Nature equips us with a way to control hemorrhage. The placenta, which contains the perfect cocktail for hemorrhage control, can and should be used. By placing a small piece of placenta inside the mother’s cheek, hemorrhage can be stopped. Having mom suck on the membranes or the umbilical cord also works well as they both contain the most oxytocin. By using this method, active management of the third stage of labor would be avoided. Furthermore, the use of synthetics like pitocin would be unnecessary, resulting is less risk for the mother.
“I have been trying to get midwives to use what they already have readily available when controlling excessive bleeding: the membranes, cord and placenta. These are loaded with the perfect chemical components to stop bleeding. The potential dangers of synthetic oxytocin are avoided as well. We can observe mammals that eat their placentas (and don’t have human interference); they do not hemorrhage. Let’s take a lesson from God, who is so smart to create such a process. I believe if this knowledge had been known and used over the past few centuries, there would be millions of mothers who would not have died in childbirth, since hemorrhage is the biggest killer of women in childbirth worldwide.” -Jann Tritten, Midwifery Today
Learn more about the 3rd Stage of Labor.
