Yaya DaCosta has social media deep in conversation after making strong claims about placenta practices during childbirth while appearing on One54 Africa. The actress and model opened up about delayed cord cutting, lotus births, and what she believes hospitals are doing with placentas after delivery, sparking intense reactions online from mothers and health-conscious viewers alike.
During the conversation, Yaya spoke candidly about childbirth practices and explained why she believes more women should pay closer attention to what happens to the umbilical cord and placenta after giving birth.
“You’ve got all of this cord blood in the umbilical cord,” Yaya explained. “You keep it attached until it’s white and it stops pulsing. There’s no more blood.”
According to Yaya, she believes many hospitals cut the umbilical cord far too quickly after birth. She claimed that some people choose to wait much longer before cutting the cord, while others even practice lotus birth, where the placenta remains attached to the baby until it naturally falls away.
“Most people will just cut it, so wait at least 30 minutes or something instead of like three seconds like they do in the hospital,” she said during the interview.
Yaya continued by questioning why hospitals still follow what she described as “antiquated” practices surrounding cord cutting. She also claimed hospitals benefit financially from retaining the cord blood and placenta after birth.
“They don’t need to do that,” she said. “But it benefits them because they keep the cord blood. Forty percent of your baby’s blood is still in the placenta.”
The actress went on to allege that hospitals later use or sell those materials because stem cells have become increasingly valuable.
“And then they take it away. ‘Oh, it’s waste. You can’t have it.’ And then they are selling it for stem cells,” Yaya claimed. “It’s not even a joke. Literally, that’s what it is. They sell them. Stem cells are popular right now.”
Clips from the interview quickly spread across social media platforms, where users began debating delayed cord cutting, stem cell collection, and hospital birth practices. Many viewers praised Yaya for bringing attention to conversations around childbirth choices, while others questioned some of the claims made during the interview.
The discussion also introduced many social media users to terms like “lotus birth” and delayed cord cutting, both of which have become more widely discussed in natural birth and wellness communities in recent years.
