Delayed cord clamping.

[jenny82]

I've only recently heard of this. What does it acheive? Have tried googling but theres not too much info on it apart from a few BBC articles..

 

[Kess]

It allows baby all of their blood, as a portion of it is left in the cord if clamped early. Once the cord has stopped pulsing it's ready to be cut. I did delayed cord clamping, and it went great.

 

[RoxyRoo]

If the cord is cut straight away, between 25% and 40% of babys blood is still in the placenta. They will then have to make up this blood volume and will miss the nutrients and anti-bodies which it contains.

If you wait until the cord has stopped pulsating before you cut it, then baby receives all of the required blood supply.

I'm planning on delayed cord clamping and luckily my midwife is all for it

 

[jenny82]

Wow - I can't beleive I didn't know about this before. DO you know why the cord is cut so quickly then if leaving it has such benefits?

 

[littlelady23]

i have a question about delayed cord clamping - if you don't mind me butting in your thread jenny! how long is delayed? are we talkin an hour, 5 hours? sorry im a bit clueless but its something im quite keen to do x

 

[Kess]

Wow - I can't beleive I didn't know about this before. DO you know why the cord is cut so quickly then if leaving it has such benefits?

A combination of reasons I think. I think you need to clamp the cord if you have the injection to rush delivery of the placenta, which they want to do to get the bed back/let the Dr go home, frankly. That's called a managed third stage, whereas allowing the body to do it itself (like I did) is a physiological third stage. It's been done this way for quite a while, so there's a lack of knowledge about any other way - I've read of OB's saying they need to clamp the cord so that the baby's blood doesn't flow back into the mother with gravity!!

Some would argue that if a baby needs some help breathing etc that they need to cut the cord to take the baby over to the resus station. That's madness - the baby is having trouble breathing so you cut off it's source of oxygen?! Resus is best done on or near Mom with the cord still attached.

 

[Kess]

i have a question about delayed cord clamping - if you don't mind me butting in your thread jenny! how long is delayed? are we talkin an hour, 5 hours? sorry im a bit clueless but its something im quite keen to do x

It normally happens fairly quickly. I did delayed cord clamping and a physiological third stage, you can read my birth story in my siggy. Basically, he was born at 1.55am, I got out of the pool and sat on the settee with him, and my sister cut the cord once it had finished pulsing at 2.30am. The placenta arrived 4 minutes later, naturally. I barely noticed it. Skin-to-skin with your baby helps, as does getting baby to the breast.

 

[paperz]

This blog has some great info on delayed cord clamping: www.midwifethinking.com.