Delayed Cord Clamping

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You may or may not have heard of waiting to clamp the baby's umbilical cord after it is born until after the cord is done pulsating. This is referred to as delayed cord clamping, and is becoming more and more common today. Some midwives and doctors already make this a regular part of their practice, as they have seen many benefits from it for the baby's health and well- being. The overall idea, is that by allowing the cord to finish pulsating, the placenta can give the baby all of it's blood back, as the placenta is continually nourishing the baby with wonderful oxygen and nutrients. Some people refer to the last pulsating of the cord as a placental transfusion. Throughout nature, there are few mammals that rush to cut the cord. In fact, the cord can be left attached to the placenta for several days until it dries up and falls off on its own (also called a lotus birth). So there is no real "need" to cut the cord immediately, unless the baby is having an emergency such as respiratory distress, infection, etc.

Some doula colleagues of mine recently shared these wonderful resources about the benefits and risks of cord clamping. Some interesting take aways from the studies presented in this video (a 4 part series, definitely worth watching!):
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-In infants whose cord was delayed in being clamped, the babies had in overall increase in blood volume by approximately 25%.

-At 2-3 minutes after being born, a baby is still getting oxygen from the umbilical cord. This is what makes water birth possible. At 60 seconds after being born, the baby has gotten approximately half of the blood transfusion. (An interesting note in the video about this: if just 40% of our blood was removed as adults, we would be in shock!)

-In order for the transfusion to be effective, the baby must be placed at a height no higher than on the mother's belly.

-Some studies showed that babies who had delayed cord clamping had slightly higher billirubin levels, but did not have alarming levels of jaundice.

-Immediately after being born, babies have about a 40% blood volume increase when the cord was allowed to finish pulsating when compared with other babies whose cord was immediately clamped. At 4 days of age, babies whose cord was delayed in being clamped had approximately 20-30% more blood volume than babies whose cord was immediately clamped.
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Here is another link to a site that is by and for OBGYNs. Interestingly, in one portion of this article, they compare immediate cord clamping to having a massive hemorage, which makes sense when the previous information suggested that a newborn will only receive half of his or her blood volume when the cord is clamped at 60 seconds! More good information here:

http://www.obgyn.net/pregnancy-birth/pregnancy-birth.asp?page=/pb/articles/neonatal-resuscitation

You don't have to take my word for it, read it for yourself!