I am amazed by just about everything having to do with birth….mothers, the creation of babies from a sperm and egg, the childbirth process, the placenta, the umbilical cord…
Aaahhhh….that umbilical cord. That magical connection that grows life. It filters, it provides, it knows when to start and it knows when baby no longer needs it.
For more information about the umbilical cord and it’s importance at birth, please see my supplemental blog post here – Clamping Umbilical Cords
I’ve often tried to explain to people the incredible changes that happen at birth – including to the umbilical cord – but I’ve had a hard time finding images to demonstrate what I’m trying to explain.
Until now! I recently attended a birth and asked the mother permission to take photographs of her baby’s umbilical cord to document the changes it goes through after the birth – and she said yes!
Umbilical cords have two arteries and a vein that run the length of it. Those three vessels are surrounded by a special substance called Wharton’s Jelly. This jelly is thick and gelatinous when functional – this is to prevent the baby from accidentally causing it to kink and stop functioning (even true knots in the cord rarely cause problems because the Wharton’s Jelly prevents it from being able to tighten down and occlude blood flow to baby!)
When baby is born, this cord continues to function, providing the baby with not only blood and oxygen – but providing baby TIME! Time to transition to air breathing, experiencing the changes that babies go through at birth. As long as that cord is pulsing, it’s working for the baby the exact same way it did before the baby came out.
Once baby’s breathing and the cord is no longer needed, it goes through its own transformation. The Wharton’s Jelly in the cord begins to liquefy…tightening down on those vessels…clamping them off naturally. The cord slowly becomes thin, white, limp – dramatic changes from the thick purple pulsing entity it was when the baby was born!
Not clamping or cutting the cord until this transformation has occurred provides the baby with the benefit of extra blood, oxygen, gentleness and time!
Here you can see the magical changes of the cord! These pictures are ALL of the same umbilical cord…progressively taken over time.
THE FOLLOWING PICTURES WERE TAKEN OVER A PERIOD OF ABOUT 15 MINUTES – BABY WAS ATTACHED THE ENTIRE TIME….
PLEASE REMEMBER TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE….DO NOT JUST TAKE THE PICTURES FROM THIS PAGE WITHOUT LINKING OR GIVING CREDIT BACK TO THIS BLOG!!! THANK YOU!
Brand new! Right after birth the cord is thick, pulsing. We could actually SEE it thumping with the baby’s heartbeat.
There’s already a difference!! Look at how much thinner it is – less purple, less ‘tight’…
Less purple…thinner….
same piece of cord, same angle….now MUCH whiter, much thinner. But still not done with the transformation! You might think so though, huh! No…just wait.
NOW we are pretty much finished with the transformation. Compare this to the top picture of the same piece of cord….
Completely done, Wharton’s Jelly has liquified, the cord is not pulsing…it is thin, white, and very limp. Amazing!
PLEASE REMEMBER TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE….DO NOT JUST TAKE THE PICTURES FROM THIS PAGE WITHOUT LINKING OR GIVING CREDIT BACK TO THIS BLOG!!! THANK YOU!
And here they are all in a row for you to see…..
75 Comments
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for this series of photos! It is wonderful glimpse at the importance of delayed clamping! May I use this photo series in the education of birth doulas and CBE as well as new families? I will of course, give you credit for the fantastic pictures! Please let me know!
You bet Sharon…that’s why we took them, for educational purposes. =)
This is so awesome Stephanie! Thank you.
What a lovely project, the images are fantastic. Thanks for giving approval for others to educate with this photo essay!
I will provide a link to this page from Cord-Clamping.Com
Fantastic! I have been looking for pictures to show my HypnoBirthing clients and these are perfect. Thank you for sharing.
Very nice!
Amazing photos.
fascinating! just flicked through my photos after my daughter was born and watched the change in hers! amazing!
Excellent .. you can even see how the arteries empty first, as the vein is still delivering blood back to the baby! Thanks so much for sharing. x
Awesome visuals! Now I can show my daughters & daughters in law.
Beautiful series! I can’t help but ask… was this mama a VBAC? I think I see a cesarean scar.
(I’m a VBAC mama myself, so I tend to look for it!).
Either way, congrats to this mama.
No she was not a VBAC…this mother has had two children, both both with NHBS, both homebirths….
Normalizing intact cords language comment…it’s not “extra” blood. It’s the baby’s full complement of blood. Babies whose cords are clamped prematurely are hypovolemic.
What’s the time span between the first and last photo? Thanks for sharing!
completely awe-mazing!
Recently I heard that delaying cutting the cord can reduce the chances of autism spectrum disorders.
What was the time at the first and last photos? I love how clearly this demonstrates nature taking care of physiological cord closure.
As stated in the blog post….the time between the first and last pictures is approximately 15 minutes….
thank you my sons were born in peace and freedom with midwives. The oord and placenta an integral part of their births. Not rushed nor neglected, not clamped, no hurry to “finish”. thank you so much
First, excuse my english,I’m french !
I saw that when i gave birth at home. But we did’nt cut anything, we would like wait that the ombilicom cord fall by itself. And the day after, the cord looks like a little dry peace of wood. The day n°3, the Navel was like mine !
These photos are such a gift! Thank you for putting this together. I’m passing along your post right now.
Very awesome! Question – how long did this transformation take place? I just had a baby three weeks ago and about 2 minutes after he was born the cord was that limp, white like your last image. I thought it took longer but perhaps it is different for everyone!
That’s incredible. I would also like to use those photos for a client handout on delayed cord clamping. Thank you so much for sharing them.
These are amazing images! I always tell my clients about delaying the cord and they ask what it looks like. Now I have a great place to point them to. Thank you so much!
I have picture of a cord with three true knots if you would like them. The Dr.s were astonished that the baby was small but healthy.
Excellent post, with great pics! Thank you so much for sharing this.
Wow! Those are cool photos. What a great idea to photograph a time sequence. It really shows how beautifully the birth process is designed to work by Nature.
Thank you for sharing this. After seeing these photos, it REALLY makes no sense to clamp the cord! The photos help make the information click.
Another “normalizing” comment – prematurely amputating (or cutting the cord before it is done doing its job) increases the risk of autism, lifelong anemia and circulation difficulties.
Very cool. Thank you for the information and photos!
I am due to have a baby in January and my Aunty who is a Midwife told me not to clamp or cut the cord till it stops pulsing, it is great to see her advise backed up. Thanks.
This is fabulous! These pictures are awesome. This is a must share. Thank you!
What a great idea to photograph the changes. Thanks for doing that. This photo series is a wonderful educational tool. Took me years to fully appreciate what was happening in the cord and the way the placenta and cord sustained the baby through those first minutes after birth (variable for everyone). The routine practice of immediately clamping and cutting the cord in medically dominated birth places is gradually being recognised as harmful and photos like this help to graphically demonstrate why that may be so. Thanks again for sharing these photos.
I have been longing for this information! Thank you so much for such a great description, information and visual display!! Great work and thank you so much. I want a home birth and this is a huge piece of my puzzle.
Marvelous pictures. Very instructive. I lecture about cord clamping and would like to have your permission to use these photos.
Of course, it makes perfect sense not to rush cutting the cord that has sustained the babies life for 9 months. Hospitals get in such a hurry to hurry the process along…. and so unnecessary!
oh golly this is incredible pictures of cord blood.this should be banked!
Why should it be banked instead of given to the baby? Why steal from this baby what is hers?
Hi there – i teach antenatal classes and hypnobirthing classes in New Zealand – great photos – may i copy and use them as well for educational purposes? giving credit of course as well
Hi
I am writing an essay about cord clamping and your pictures are just what I have been looking for. Would I be able to use them in my essay?
Thanks
Thank you so much for these images! I will share them with my new mother friends. I wish I had had these when I was giving birth. When I asked my doctor about waiting to cut the cord, she acted like that was the craziest thing she had ever heard and questioned me on why I would ask such a question. If only I had had such striking information, perhaps I would have done a better job of responding.
I often teach newborn transition and Evidence-based newborn care. These pictures are amazing. May I have permission to use them in my seminars?
Do you have the information on the timing of the cord pictures between the right after birth and the 15 min picture?
What timing are you looking for, Barbara? I can give an approximation that the first picture was taking within the first minute or so of the birth….and then we took pictures “every so often” about every 3-5 minutes when we noticed that it had changed a little more. The last picture was taking about 15-20 minutes after the birth….
is that what you were looking for?
Thaks for getting back to me about the timing of the photos… that was exactly what I was looking for!
These photos are so great to have. I’m wondering if it would be possible to use the last one (all of them sequenced) to create a Screenr presentation. It’s a short 5 min video where I can talk over top of a photo and use my mouse to point out different things. Let me know if you’d be ok with that—I’d let you review it before sending it out, if you want. Gloria Lemay, Vancouver BC
I am so happy to have stumbled on this! In my last class I had a client ask me how the cord changed after birth, and although I tried to explain it, this is perfect! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You are Awesome! Thanks for sharing… I gave birth to my youngest on my hands and knees and gently placed her under me until the cord stopped pulsating. Gravity works wonders
Hey… Are you already certified in placenta encapsulating and homeopathy?
Hello
These photos are fantastic.
Would I be allowed to display them, with your reference, at my workshop & in my workshop guide, called ‘The Sacred Placenta’
If you need more information about myself & this in general Iwill be happy for that.
Thank you
my baby daughter’s birth was marked by a shoulder dystocia situation that took 11 minutes between head and body birthing… it was so extreme that she was completely unresponsive once fully born. there is no question that keeping the cord attached through the rescusitation time was simply lifesaving. these images illustrate why. had it been cut we would have severed her life source while her breathing was still adjusting. being with midwives who understood that was invaluable at a critical time. talk to your care provider during pregnancy and advocate to keep the cord attached as long as possible to protect baby during that transition! oxygen deprivation or mortality are pretty frightening alternatives.
Thanks so much for sharing. So much focus is on the placenta and baby that the cord is often forgotten. These are amazing pictures and just reaffirms that our bodies know exactly what to do!
So if you do not clamp the umbilical cord… I am assuming you would not be able to do the cord banking?? Since everything drains out, then there is nothing left to bank?
Dana:
It doesn’t ‘drain out’….it provides the baby the correct blood volume. It’s POSSIBLE to bank, but less likely to be able to as you are less likely to be able to draw an adequate volume from a now-collapsed cord.
I didn’t mean “drain out” like to no where… I meant drain out of the actual cord into the baby… don’t get so offensive!!
After reading more on it I did see that you probably couldn’t do both… No biggie!! Just being curious because I had never heard of not immediately cutting the cord. I wish I would have known about it. I wanted to save my daughters cord blood but was unable to financially so this would have been great to know about to do instead.
Personally wanted to give the cord blood for research purposes to fine a cure for my kids medical condition… but this sounds cool too. Then again after your response felt like an attack it makes me think again….
Dana, I don’t think Elfanie meant offense. It’s just that not all of the blood in the placenta necessarily goes to the baby. The baby will get the correct amount of blood, and the remainder will be in the placenta. I have read of at least one situation where someone was able to do both delayed cord clamping and blood banking, but I don’t know if it is common for enough blood to be left behind.
Amazing pictures. I just had a home birth 3 1/2 months ago and we enjoyed watching the transfermation of our cord also. Birth is nothing short of a miracle.
I have taken many birthing classes and done a lot of reading, but never come across this valuable information! I’m currently writing my birth plan now and had previously planned on donating the cord blood. I will certainly choose to drain the blood fully into the baby instead. I have a naive question, is the baby breathing on their own at this time before the cord is cut or does it not breathe on its own until after the cord is cut? Im trying to picture what the moments after birth will be like if the cord is still attached. Thanks for the great info!
Beatifull!! Thanks!!!
This is a wonderful series. I would love to know — or if you ever repeat this exercise — how long past birth each photo was taken for time reference. For the science geek in me.
Thank you for this. It partially explains how my daughter managed to live when she has no blood going to her lungs, so no oxygen to the rest of her body (persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn) and will help greatly in a poster I need to do on the plcenta and how it supports the foetus.
Just please remember to add credit back to this site…I have seen my pictures ALL OVER the place without appropriate credit being given. =)
Why isn’t the photographer credited in this post? Proper credit would include the photographer, not the hand-model.
Hand model? You are anonymously concerned?
Actually proper credit would include the WEBSITE it is being taken from as requested…..since we aren’t asking that you give credit to the “hand model” but to the website publishing the photographs.
These photographs were taken by NHBS midwifery apprentice Jennifer Bass at the request of the hand-model who was gloved up and busy at the time – at an NHBS client’s birth with permission to both take and publish the pictures given by the generous client to NHBS.
Notice the “hand model” is not mentioned nor is it requested that she receive credit…NHBS is. Please respect that. Thank you.
Hi, these are great pictures. Could I use them in my ‘magazine’ and link them back to your site please?
Many thanks
Absolutely…as long as credit is given…
YAY! I have been scouring for a good visual for hubbs to look atto give the ok for them to clamp and let him cut. Didn’t find a good one…found a GREAT one! Thanks so much. I will so be printing off the pics and putting them on the top of the diaper bag for the big day! Thank you thank you!
Thank you I have linked this blog to my blog Hands off the Cord!
http://birthmatters.co.nz/issues-of-birth-rights/hands-off-the-cord/
I want to bank some of my baby’s cordblood because of certain genetic conditions in my family, but I still want her to get a good amount before we clamp it. Is this even possible to do?
Watermark the images to prevent theft.
How long was the entire process for the cord to become white?
WOW! I’m just starting to teach here in northern Spain and will definitely show these!!! Midwives, pregnant couples, and special courses for men. Thanks so much for this!!
Thank you very much for these amazing photographs. It shows the miracle of life again.
Thank you so much! these images make the point of delayed cord clamping beautifully.
Thank you for your beautiful site.
Thank you very much for these photos! I’m working on an evidence based practice project related to delayed cord clamping. I’m going to use these photos with the poster project- but I’ll give you full credit (in APA format, nonetheless!)
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