Are we cutting umbilical cords too soon after birth?

The most common surgical procedure in the world today – one that every human alive today has undergone – is the clamping and cutting of the umbilical cord at birth. The need for clamping and cutting the cord is not in dispute but how soon after birth this should occur is now being questioned.

We've long known that immediate umbilical cord clamping and cutting could be harmful. Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin – a well-known doctor – summarised the risks back in 1801:

Very injurious to the child is the tying of the navel string too soon. It should be left till all pulsation in the cord ceases. Otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.

When the first commercial cord clamp device was released in the 1890s, instructions published in The Lancet medical journal said it should not be used until the cord stops pulsating, meaning blood flow has ceased.

Read the full story on The Conversation (opens in a new window)

Interviewed:

• Hannah Dahlen Professor of Midwifery at University of Western Sydney

^{Source: The Conversation
Posted: July 26, 2013
Type: Online}