The function of the placenta is an overlooked non-thought, because the medical system considers it redundant the minute a baby's head makes an appearance. Don't you think that strange, given that for nearly nine months, the placenta has provided nutrients, oxygen and... stem cells to the baby? This magnificent organ provides an amazing service, which is utterly abused, particularly when it comes to ... multipotent and lineage-committed stem cells. That the placenta contains stem cells should present no surprises to anyone. After all, where do the medical profession think stem cells come from? Thin air? Perhaps they "just appear" and are unique to, a developing embryo? Nope. Cord blood from the placenta, has been described as the baby's first natural stem cell transplant. Which is why anyone who understands placental physiology would never clamp a cord. So why do they? And we also also know that one of the consequences of immediate cord cutting, is brain ischaemia, which can cause brain damage for life.
But we're dealing with a system which appears to be functionally illiterate, yet loves dramatic solutions fit for TV dramas,.... so.... wouldn't you know it. ... ? Drum roll here.... A flurry of medical articles this year, has shown that administration of stem cells can treat neonatal ischemic brain damage! (click on this link, and then click on related articles to see the others). And of course, it will have to be... injected!
Is this why obstetricians are so enthusiastic about cord blood banking?
Because... they need a commercial source of a compound to fix the mistakes they make by immediately clamping the cord and depriving the baby of a natural bolus of those same stem cells?
Isn't it time the medical system came to terms with the fact that the placenta, which makes those pluripotent stem cells, AND provides oxygen and nutrient to the in-utero baby all that length of time..., doesn't need to be immediately amputated from the baby, when it still has a job to do?
This stem cell bolus transplant that the baby will get at birth is there for a very good reason.
What might that be?
Simple.
Any foetus which gets being wrung out like a wet towel while travelling down a narrow drain pipe, can incur damage in any part of the body, including in the brain, and needs an in-built fix-it. And stem cells cross the brain blood barrier. In fact, stem cells can go ... anywhere!!! Amazing don't you think. God's design has solutions for situational problems. Three solutions, actually. The second is the fact that naturally, in the first few days, a baby's blood clotting factors are lower than normal.
But ... paediatricians consider this a ... "defect" ... so want to give vitamin K which results in blood nearly 100 times thicker than an adult's. This vitamin K injection, so they say ... (like they say immediate cord clamping is safe, and normal, and delayed cord clamping is an unproven intervention) ... is because the baby wasn't designed right, and if you don't give a vitamin K injection, the baby "could bleed to death".
It's not for nothing that the vitamin K syringe, sits right alongside that cord clamp and the scissors!
But there is an unanswered question: "Why are blood clotting factors in babies low in the first few days after birth? Why has a baby got much thinner blood as a result?"
Might a logical hypothesis be, that thinner blood allows freer and quicker access of cord blood stem cells to any part of the body damaged during birth? After all, why should stem cells have to fight through a baby's blood which is now 100 times thicker than any adult's, courtesy of another needle?
Seemingly, these doctors think that stem cells should be injected into babies, but I note that none of the baby animals used in these experiments, were ALSO given vitamin K injections at birth as well! .... Other experiments injected the cells directly into the brain, ... which sounds much more "efficient", and much more dramatic. Much more "life saving"! And what with boys and toys, might well become the preferred solution, all in the name of being the white knight on a silver steed, huh?
However, these stem cells don't need to be injected. If they can migrate across the brain blood barrier, after being injected into the stomach of rats, they can cross the human blood brain barrier, after being naturally infusing down the unclamped umbilical cord, into the baby's stomach, during which time the obstetrician holds the door frame up while warming hands in pockets!
Of course, God's solutions don't just stop there. To cover all options for "treatment" of a wrung out baby, for however long a mother breastfeeds, her baby drinks lots of stem cells in breastmilk. Talk about multi-route brilliant, natural solutions... which the medical system didn't think of, and which has served to populate this world very successfully in the past.
So why don't obstetricians explain to mothers WHY the best and safest way for healthy mothers to give birth is, vaginally - with the cord not clamped until it's shrivelled hard and dry, (and then only to keep the obstetrician happy) and that mothers should breastfeed for a long time?
Problem is, if all mothers do this, some obstetricians might have to get a new job.
Oh yeah, and cut out the vitamin K injection as well. If your diet during pregnancy is right, your baby will not have a problem. After all, we survived very well before the vitamin K injection came along with the clamp and the scissors, didn't we?
Perhaps one day, some scientist will come along with an elegant, blindingly obvious physiological reason as to why babies blood shouldn't be thicker than normal in the first little while after birth!
Don't let anyone in the medical system tell you that immediate cord cutting is safe, your baby has a natural vitamin K deficiency, or that formula is healthy and a superb" breast milk equivalent", because that just ain't so.
Formula might save a life, but it certainly won't provide all the various immune enhancements and in-built "fix-its" that breastmilk can.
And on that note, don't you think it strange that many third world countries run efficient breastmilk banks, but you won't even find one, in a by-pass called New Zealand? How pathetic is that?