Umbilical Cord Preservation

How to safely dry your baby’s umbilical cord for a keepsake or even to be used in jewellery. Dehydrator vs. oven: which is the best to preserve an umbilical cord at home?

The Power of a Keepsake

The umbilical cord is the way your baby received oxygen and blood during their time in the womb. For millenia, parents have been keeping their baby’s cord stump as a keepsake. Sometimes, we want to preserve a longer length of cord, or their cord stump won’t be able to fall off. I can teach you how to preserve that.

Dehydration for Umbilical Cord Jewellery

• Safety First: It’s super important that the cord should be separated from the baby safely and handled with clean hands and on clean surfaces. Delayed cord clamping (DCC)* is often recommended but not essential for keeping the umbilical cord itself.
• No Need To Rinse: If you want to, you can rinse with cold water, just dry it afterwards
• Storage (If Delaying): If you can’t dry it immediately, wrap it in some plastic wrap or fabric and place it in a sealed container/bag in the freezer. You can work with a cord that has been frozen.
• Time Frozen: It’s ok if it gets freezer burn, this actually helps it dry out. It can be frozen anywhere from one hour to one decade or more!

The Core Guide: Drying Methods

• Defrosting: it’s fine to dehydrate from frozen but it takes just a little longer
• Cutting: Decide if you want to dry the cord whole or cut it into smaller pieces for ease of preservation/jewellery.
• Protection: The drying cord is lightweight and tiny and can blow away. I like to use a small silicone muffin tin or rammekin to put the cord in. I cover them with a piece of cotton cloth or muslin like this with an open weave and secure with an elastic band

• Umbilical Cord Preservation Methods: Oven, Dehydrator, & Air Fryer

Step-by-Step Instructions (for all methods):

1. Place the cord pieces in the rammekin, cover with the cloth and secure with an elastic band. If you don’t do this, it might blow away
2. Set the appliance to the recommended temperature. Try to use the lowest possible temperature
3. Check the cord regularly. It is finished when it is completely hard, light, and dry, although it will still be a little bit bendy (which is the Wharton’s jelly).
4. Crucial Safety Note: Ensure good ventilation in your kitchen.

What To Do With Your Dried Cord

• Storage: Once completely dry, store the cord in a clean, airtight container in a cool, dark place. I recommend adding a silica gel sachet, like the kind you get with jerky, to absorb any moisture
• The Keepsake Jewellery Connection: This is where the magic happens! A dried umbilical cord can be ground down into a fine powder, which Tree of Opals expertly embeds into resin with your baby’s birthstone, colour, or gold leaf to create a unique “stone.”

Tree of Opals umbilical cord jewellery. Ready to turn your preserved cord into an heirloom? We offer pieces like the umbilical cord bead and rings with free engraving. You only need to send me a small amount of the dried cord for your jewellery, so the rest can be kept safely.  Umbilical Cord Preservation is a simple process that unlocks a lifetime of memories. Click here to explore the Tree of Opals collection and find the perfect piece to honour your family’s new beginning. We also offer breastmilk jewellery and memorial jewellery like cremation ashes and lock of hair. If your baby was born sleeping then we can combine their cord with hair and their ashes when you’re ready. Just put a few cm of cord into your freezer until you’re ready to ask about the process.

* Did you know, if the cord clamping is delayed, this changes the colour of the preserved umbilical cord and the jewellery! We see more cream coloured flecks and less of the wine coloured pieces.

This method can also be used to preserve early loss babies. Please contact us for help and adjust times to suit your equipment, checking regularly

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