Placenta Tree of Life
During pregnancy, mother and baby are inextricably connected. The umbilical cord and the placenta are the physical connections and literal lifeline between their nested bodies. Oxygen, nutrients, hormones, antibodies, and even toxins enter baby from mama via the placenta and cord; and carbon dioxide and wastes go back to mama from baby through them so that her body can metabolize them. When the placenta comes out after the baby is born, you can see the beautiful tree-like pattern formed by the blood vessels, hence the name, “placenta, tree of life.”
So, what can you do to grow a healthy placenta, ensure it stays firmly implanted, help it come out smoothly, and then honor it after birth?
Healthy placentas nourish healthy babies
As in all of life, when it comes to pregnancy and birth, there are many things we cannot control. My advice is meant to help you do your best now and in the future with the knowledge, abilities, and resources that you have in the moment.
About a week to ten days after conception, when sperm and egg have joined into one cell, and that cell has multiplied and formed a ball that’s started differentiating into layers, this tiny new being must find its way to a welcoming place along the inner lining of the womb where it can start to draw nourishment for survival and growth.
Many times, mothers don’t know they’re pregnant at this time. But if you are aware that you are or might become pregnant before you’ve even missed a period, you can send welcoming and loving and reassuring thoughts to your baby and love to your womb space. In the fields of Biodynamic craniosacral therapy and pre and perinatal psychology, we actually address and support healing of trauma linked to the challenges of implantation, as we understand our time as an embryo to be important, highly impactful and part of our journey as sentient, conscious, feeling human beings. Here is a lovely article from Cherionna Menzam-Sills about repairing harm around baby’s and parent’s experience of discovering and welcoming/not baby and pregnancy.
And now back to the well-known, physical part of our program… Avoiding exposure to chemicals and other toxins is crucial during this early period. Excellent nutrition makes for a nourishing womb environment. Vitamins C and E help support strong and healthy implantation of the placenta throughout pregnancy. Abundant complete proteins with a full range of the amino acids necessary for tissue growth helps grow baby, placenta, uterine tissue, amniotic fluid, expanding blood volume, breast tissue, etc. And don’t forget a diversity of plant and animal foods to help supply the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients crucial to all body functions and processes. Read more about pregnancy nutrition and nourishment here!
Just like exercise is important for your cardiovascular system, so can it support your placenta to optimally oxygenate your baby. Exercise is generally a sympathetic nervous system activity. We all need to be able to engage in fight, flight, tend and befriend behaviors, as well as healthy work and play. Of course, our body’s parasympathetic nervous system functions of rest, digest, heal, and grow are at least as crucial to placental health! The invisible work of resting, sleeping, breathing, and meditation are vital to healthy placental growth, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and parenting! Here’s a lovely Craniosacral Podcast episode with Brigit Visknins about healthy nervous systems.
Your shared neuro-endocrine immune system
The human placenta, like other mammalian placentas, is an organ. You could say it belongs to the baby, as the blood it contains is the baby’s blood. The mother’s blood supplies the placenta with everything it needs. And our blood carries more than just oxygen and nutrients from food. IgG antibodies that protect against viral and bacterial infections also cross the placenta, so that the baby is essentially sharing the mama’s immune system while in utero. The blood is also the river that carries hormones, which are the body’s messengers. In fact, the emotions that the pregnant person experiences are communicated to the baby in part via the hormones released in association with those emotions. These messenger molecules influence how the baby’s brain and nervous system develop, helping prepare baby holistically for life outside the womb. So here is another vote for stress reduction and stress management for pregnant people!
Birthing your placenta, a.k.a. the third stage of labor
After your baby is born, your uterus continues to contract. Usually after a few contractions, the uterus shrinks enough that the placenta separates from the wall of the womb. Often times a gush of blood comes out. Once the placenta has separated, usually within 10-30 minutes, it can start to come down and out. It’s about the size of a dinner plate and has the texture of a hearty organ or jellyfish. A little bit of pushing effort and/or some help from gravity or gentle, skilled application of traction by your midwife can bring the placenta out. Then your uterus can continue to contract and close off the vessels that supplied blood to the placenta. Finally now the birth is done. Here’s a nice, informative article about the third stage of labor.
Cutting the cord
Once the baby is breathing, the placenta has been born, and blood is no longer flowing through the umbilical cord, it is safe to separate baby from their tree of life by clamping and cutting or burning the cord. Some families choose not to separate baby from placenta and instead treat the placenta with preserving salts and herbs and tote it around along with their baby until the cord naturally comes off of the baby’s umbilicus. This is called a lotus birth.
Placenta tree of life art
What to do with this beautiful organ? You can actually make beautiful tree of life prints with your own blood and/or with paint! And the cord can also be arranged in various ways so that it dries in a chosen shape for a keepsake.
Consuming, encapsulating or burying the placenta
Most mammals consume their placentas. That way there is no organ left lying around to rot or attract other animals to the vulnerable young ones and postpartum mama animal. And of course, the placenta is full of hormones, iron, and other nutrients. Placenta encapsulation has become a popular way to consume human placenta without having to taste it. Many parents swear by its help with staving off postpartum depression and encouraging milk production. Another lovely tradition is to bury the placenta and plant a tree with it, to be nourished as the placenta decomposes, and to grow alongside the growing child. Check out my Community Resources page to find placenta art and encapsulation specialists in the Baltimore, Maryland region.
Would you like to explore working together for your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care? Give me a call! You can schedule a free consult on my website here.
FAQ
What does the placenta tree mean?
Have you ever noticed how blood vessels, rivers, tree branches, and other parts of nature take a similar shape? When a placenta is delivered, it’s really clear and beautiful to see how the umbilical cord looks like a tree trunk, and the veins in the side of the placenta nearer the baby look like branches!
Why does the placenta look like the tree of life?
The vessels of the placenta branch out to connect with the mother’s blood stream so that nutrients and oxygen can pass through from the mother’s blood stream to the baby. Nature is full of similar shapes!
What is the placenta spiritually?
Different cultures speak of the meaning of the placenta in different ways. Some native American traditions refer to the placenta as the first mother. Because babies receives nourishment through their placentas before they receive it from their mothers’ breasts and then from our mother Earth.
Why do people plant trees with a placenta?
Planting a tree with your placenta gives your baby a connection to a certain place on the earth, provides a way to return nutrients to the earth, gives your child another being to grow alongside, and offers a way to honor both the earth and this incredible organ and source of life that grew inside a mother’s body, rather than discarding it.
