Placenta Birth & Physiological 3rd Stage why it matters.

There is a sacred hush that follows the moment a baby is born.

The world seems to pause.

It is the body’s final act, the delivery of the placenta, yet in many hospital rooms it is treated like an afterthought, something to hurry along, tidy up, and move past.

Those minutes hold more power than most people realize.

They are the completion of the hormonal masterpiece that began the moment labor started.

When undisturbed, they seal the body’s design for safety, love, milk flow, and emotional calm.

When interfered with, they can quietly take away some of the magic that nature built into the process of becoming a mother.

The Forgotten Power of the Third Stage

In most hospitals, Pitocin and cord traction are considered routine.

Even when there is no sign of trouble, they are done automatically, as if birth cannot be trusted to finish itself. But this is not rooted in evidence based science.

And birth is not broken.

Your body is not broken.

The third stage of labor, when the placenta is born, is not an accident of biology. It is an intelligent and exquisitely timed part of the process.

The Natural Design of Hormones

When the baby emerges, your body releases a surge of natural oxytocin, the same hormone that fueled your contractions and opened your cervix.

This time, oxytocin has a new job. It floods the uterus, telling it to contract gently, helping the placenta separate safely while also preventing excess bleeding by constricting the blood vessels first, before detachment. Something that doesn’t occur with manual removal, and often is why bleeding is increased with intervention.

At the same moment, other hormones join in.

Endorphins soothe pain.

Dopamine lights the brain with reward.

Prolactin prepares the breasts for milk.

Oxytocin continues to rise, deepening love and connection.

Together, they create the peaceful, euphoric state of love between mother and baby that often follows an undisturbed birth.

These hormones do not only protect your body. They shape the emotional blueprint between you and your baby.

The warmth that fills your chest when you smell your newborn.

The calm that settles over you as you hold them.

The way milk flows and the body begins to heal.

All of this is hormonal. All of it is physiological.

What Happens When Pitocin Interrupts the Flow…

When Pitocin is given automatically, that natural rhythm is interrupted.

Synthetic oxytocin can make the uterus contract, but it does not reach the brain.

It cannot trigger the same emotional connections or the deep bonding chemistry your body was about to release.

It may even dull your natural oxytocin production in the hours and days that follow, which affects breastfeeding, emotional balance, and your ability to relax after birth.

When that happens, another set of hormones begins to rise.

These are the catecholamines— the body’s stress chemicals such as adrenaline and noradrenaline.

They are meant to help in moments of true danger or effort, giving you energy and alertness when needed.

But when they are triggered in the wrong setting, they pull the body out of its calm, oxytocin-rich state.

They tighten muscles, raise heart rate, and send signals of tension through the system.

Instead of sinking into rest, safety, and connection, the body feels it must stay alert.

The result can be anxiety, difficulty resting, delayed milk flow, or a feeling of emotional distance after birth.

The Risk of Cord Traction

Cord traction, the gentle pulling on the umbilical cord to speed things up, may seem harmless.

Yet if the placenta has not fully detached, that pull can cause fragments to tear, the uterus to invert, or bleeding to worsen.

More importantly, it takes away the moment of completion.

Your body already knew how to do this. It was already doing it.

When Intervention Is Needed

Emergencies do happen, and when they do, these interventions can save lives. But in births that unfold naturally, without drugs or distress, emergencies are rare.

When a mother is calm, skin to skin with her baby, her hormones finish the work beautifully, most of the time within half an hour.

When she is rushed or anxious, the body’s rhythm can falter, often because it was not given the chance to lead.

Honoring the Physiological Third Stage:

The physiological third stage is not about doing nothing.

It is about trusting the body enough to pause.

It is about warmth, quiet, and allowing the cascade to finish.

It is about recognizing that the moment the baby is born, the body has not stopped working.

It is simply shifting into its next task.

When we honor that, the birth does not just end. It completes.

And in that completion, something happens that no medicine can recreate — the flood of hormones that bond, protect, and transform.

This is how birth was built to be.

Slow. Intelligent. Designed for connection.

When we stop rushing it, we rediscover what it means to be born — not only for the baby, but for the mother too…

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