# Cord of Life **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391 "2003-02-07T04:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Agropoli78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aca169/32.png) [@Agropoli78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agropoli78)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/1 "2003-02-07T04:17:45Z")
I was wondering how umbilical cords were cut in the past. Before the invention of scissors and the use of knives. Even how the newborn is removed from it’s mother small third world villages. Even if someone has some insight on how monkeys deal with this issue, it would be helpful ---
**Author:** ![Jiminy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5fc32e/32.png) [@Jiminy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jiminy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/2 "2003-02-07T04:20:13Z")
cutting tools are extremely old, so they just used that. I don’t look at monkeys so I wouldn’t know about that last question ---
**Author:** ![samarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/3 "2003-02-07T04:22:08Z")
Maybe in nature, the mother bites the cord to break it (in the case of monkeys at least). ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/4 "2003-02-07T04:22:54Z")
I read somewhere (actually in a book by the author of Something of Value) that African women would squat while giving birth. There have been cutting tools available from wayback in the earliest stone ages. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/5 "2003-02-07T04:56:49Z")
Even without cutting tools. The cord would eventually fall off anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Agropoli78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aca169/32.png) [@Agropoli78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agropoli78)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/6 "2003-02-07T06:36:40Z")
I haven’t witnessed a live birth…Is the unbilical cord still attached to the mother or does it come out with the sac? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/7 "2003-02-07T06:52:32Z")
The umbilical cord comes out attached only to the baby, not the mother. The uterus by this time has already let go of the umbilical cord as part of the birth process. Monkey mothers leave the umbilical cord alone, by instinct. Detaching it prematurely (i.e., before it falls off naturally) is detrimental to the newborn monkeys. William F. Windle did research on this, cutting the umbilical cords of monkeys at birth, as is done in humans: > [@](#): > > [Windle] performed autopsies on some of these helpless infants [monkeys] and found in every case that their brains harbored severe lesions of a type resulting from oxygen deprivation. He was able to keep some of the monkeys alive (and it took outside help; it was beyond the monkey’s abilities) until they had matured and achieved apparent normality. When he autopsied some of these apparently recovered monkeys, he found that their brains STILL harbored exactly the same lesions found at birth. The damage done at the beginning proved irreparable. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/8 "2003-02-07T07:27:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > **The umbilical cord comes out attached only to the baby, not the mother. The uterus by this time has already let go of the umbilical cord as part of the birth process.** You listed three things (uterus, cord, baby), but not the fourth – the placenta. My understanding was that in a normal birth of any mammal, you end up with an intact mother and uterus over here, and an intact placenta, cord, and baby over there. At some point the placenta and most or all of the cord are severed from the baby (in people this is done with a tool and other mammals by biting), and whatever is left of the cord will fall of the baby in a few days. Did I get anything wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/9 "2003-02-07T07:35:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Keeve \* > \*\*You listed three things (uterus, cord, baby), but not the fourth – the placenta. \*\* True, in the interest of simplification, I did not mention the placenta. ---
**Author:** ![hedra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hedra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hedra)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cord-of-life/153391/10 "2003-02-07T14:26:51Z")
Even non-carnivores will chew through the cord (and often eat the placenta, too). If this is done after the cord finishes pulsing (seals itself down) and the placenta is expelled, there’s no loss of oxygen to the baby. Unless there is a short cord or cord-wrap problem in humans, it isn’t necessary to clamp and cut the cord, either. It is an option many women’s birth plans to wait for the cord to stop pulsing and cut it only once it has shut down blood flow naturally on its own. There’s also something called [‘lotus birth’](http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/debbiemom/lotusbirth.html) where the entire thing is left attached to the baby (placenta and all) until it falls off naturally. I recall reading in a Chinese History class that the traditional means of separating the cord was to tie it tightly with a bit of silk thread - the compression caused a weak point that then separated on its own fairly soon, without leaving the entire placenta attached to the baby for the time required for the whole thing to fall off (it can take two weeks for the umbilical cord to separate at the belly button).