Yes, you can eat the placenta and leave the umbilical cord attached, but do you really want to? As routine as birth has become (386,000 babies are born into the world each day), there are still some parts of labor and delivery that are a bit odd.

Eating the placenta can help the uterus return to its normal pre-pregnant size, favors the production of milk, its protein content may have been helpful in allowing mother dog to recuperate energy, and back in time it helped maintain the den clean and odor-free.

Though you can wait as much as fifteen minutes for the mother to complete the delivery of a puppy and its placenta before you need to consider cutting the cord yourself. You will tie the umbilical cord off between a quarter of an inch and one inch from the puppy’s body.

Delaying the clamping of the cord allows more blood to transfer from the placenta to the infant, sometimes increasing the infant’s blood volume by up to a third. The iron in the blood increases infants’ iron storage, and iron is essential for healthy brain development.

The World Health Organization recommends that the umbilical cord should be clamped after the first minute. However, in some babies who can’t breathe on their own, the cord should be cut immediately to allow effective ventilation to be performed, it says.

In fact, many fathers opt to be the one to cut the umbilical cord of their newborn to be as involved as possible in the birthing process. Cord blood collection occurs after the baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut, meaning the dads can still do their part in welcoming their little ones into the world.

Overfeeding a baby often causes the baby discomfort because he or she can’t digest all of the breast milk or formula properly. When fed too much, a baby may also swallow air, which can produce gas, increase discomfort in the belly, and lead to crying.