I was temping at a local hospital ER right after I got out of college and got to see a baby born. I’d only seen horses and cattle born, and that made me go HOLY SHIT, how did that get out of there?? Imagine my expression when I saw the baby’s head crown…you can read all about it, see a video or two but being right there? Scary and humbling all at the same time.
After I gave birth, the nurses kept asking us if we wanted to see the placenta. I suppose because we’re a lesbian couple, and I did natural childbirth, they thought that maybe we were “alternative” or crunchy enough to want to admire it, or eat it, or take it to the back yard and bury it for good mojo. They seemed disappointed that we didn’t really want to look at the thing. Finally, our doula had pity on them and took a quick look.
There’s a documentary you can see on Netflix Watch Instantly (or could a few months ago anyway) called The Business of Being Born. It’s really about hospital birth versus midwife etc., but you see a lot of people have babies. Notably Ricki Lake, weirdly.
Polycarp, when you say that “the placenta is an exclusively fetal organ,” what does that mean? I guess what I’m asking is does the placenta come to be because of the fetus’s DNA, and so when you have all those cells dividing and whatnot, the fetus’s DNA code makes the baby and the sac it’s made in. I thought the placenta was more on the mother’s side of things. Also, what is the interaction between mother and fetus on a more chemical level? Is the uterus more of a construction site, as it were, providing only space to grow and the materials to do it with, and the fetus’s cells do the rest? or do the conditions there directly influence the ways that the fetus grows, being a construction site and a contractor as well?
Not gross for me either. I was shown the placenta by the doctor, who explained all the bits and purpose, and made sure I appreciated the vast array of vessels. It was absolutely fascinating. Meanwhile, my daughter had graduated - she was having her first breast feed. Birth is the most extraordinary experience - what surprised me most was the ten little fingers and ten little toes, all with wrinkles in the right places.
Not quite correct. This is true for the first birth, but subsequent births must worry about the Rh factor, blood compatability between mother and offspring due to mixing of the blood. I am not sure what is different about the subsequent pregnancies vs. the first, however.
I can explain the Rh problem. The mother can make antibodies against the baby’s blood cells. Since the cells themselves don’t cross the placenta, these antibodies aren’t made until some of the baby’s cells enter the mother’s bloodstream at birth, when the blood gets mixed a little as the placenta detaches. The mother then has been sensitized and can make antibodies to the baby’s blood. With future babies, although the baby’s blood cells are still too large to cross the placenta, the mother’s antibodies are small enough to cross the placenta and to attack the baby’s blood cells.
What is usually done to prevent this is to give the mother a shot of antibodies shortly before birth. These external antibodies then attach to the baby’s blood cells that are released from the placenta during birth so that the cells are in effect “coated” with antibody and don’t stimulate the mother to make her own antibodies. As long as this is done for each pregnancy where the mother is Rh - and the baby is Rh +, then there will be minimal problems with the next pregancy.
I am so proud of myself.
I watched that youtube video. I decided that I am almost 30 years old and I’m undoubtedly going to have to transcribe something birth related at some point. So, it’s time to fight my natural reaction to run the other way when childbirth is mentioned.
So, I forced myself to watch it. The whole thing. Even the afterbirth.
It wasn’t as bad as I remember. It’s still freaky to me and I still have no desire to ever go through that. But, it wasn’t that bad. I even didn’t freak out with the afterbirth.
The funny thing is that if I were ever given to opportunity to examine the afterbirth, I probably would. I’m strange like that.
My problem is/was the actual coming out of the body part.
But, I watched it.
The embryo (fetus), placenta, umbilical cord, and amniotic sac all develop from the fertilized egg. Thus, the fetus and the placenta have the same DNA.