As a birth photographer, I’m fascinated by change. Giving birth is perhaps one of the greatest human transformations…both for the mother and the baby. So much change happens in such a short period of time. I could write for days about all the changes I witness, but today I’ll focus on just one: the umbilical cord. The umbilical cord is the life force for they baby in the womb. It carries oxygen and nutrients from the placenta into the baby’s bloodstream. It pulses, just like a heartbeat, and sometimes you can hear it on a doppler.
Although umbilical cords all serve the same function: to nourish and sustain baby…they can look drastically different.
Some appear almost perfect coiled:
Now some of might be thinking: wait, I don’t remember my cord looking anything like any of those! One of the reasons I love birth photography is because it documents the changes that occur…the cord being one of the most fascinating ones. Once baby is born, the cord will pulse vigorously and then slowly decrease over a period of several minutes. Many women and families don’t get to see or touch their cord until the pulsing has almost entirely stopped. Cords that are no longer pulsing look like this:
