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TOPIC: Umbilical cord clamping

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TheDadAbides

Umbilical cord clamping
2 Years ago

Hey all,
My wife and I taking Bradley classes and the subject of when to clamp baby's umbilical came up. Our instructor was adamant that the long you delay cutting the cord the better. (I think it's a third of the baby's blood is in the placenta and cord at birth). I'd never even heard this position, but I've looked around and seen that (big surprise) people are very passionate about this topic as well.
I have to take everything our instructor says with a grain of salt because she tends to adamant about a lot of things, but this makes a lot of sense to me. What do you guys think? Did you delay clamping? What did your doctors say about it? Thanks.

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sean

Re:Umbilical cord clamping 2 Years ago
Wow - I must have missed that part of childbirth. I had no idea that was a consideration or option.

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concretin_nik

Re:Umbilical cord clamping 2 Years ago
Had no idea either. And have no idea when they did it. That's another one of those things I have left to the experts in the room at the time.

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bobjr79

Re:Umbilical cord clamping 2 Years ago
Yeah, I had no idea either. We didn't have an option because our son was rushed away to the NICU. It all happened so fast that I think the cord was cut before I even saw him. It makes sense that a large amount of their blood is still in there though.

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teacherdad

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
2 Years ago

This is a new one on me too.

I'm pretty sure that my daughter's cord was clamped and cut within the first minute of her being out of the womb (although that whole block of time is a little fuzzy for me). I have to say, I don't think that what you're being told makes a lot of sense. I mean, maybe 1/3 of the blood in the baby's entire system is in the cord and placenta when it is born, but if that's the natural balance then that 1/3 has to be enough, or the baby wouldn't be healthy at any point during the pregnancy, would it?

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JustJustin

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
2 Years ago

Not sure how long this has been around, but I don't think it's been long. My wife brought it up to me about a month ago.

There are several things to consider I am sure. After birth apparently the cord pumps blood and oxygen into the baby faster than they come out. So you are getting a lot more oxygen into the system during the time that babies are starting to breath.

A downside is, if you want to save the cord blood, you can't really wait or there wouldn't be much to save.

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TheDadAbides

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
2 Years ago

Yeah, my wife and I originally were going to donate the cord blood, but the charity already was maxxed out for the month we were due and couldn't accept anymore. We don't really want to save the cord blood for ourselves.

Wikipedia cites a couple of studies that show that delaying cord clamping improves RBC count and the amount of iron in the in the blood. I don't know. In a lot of ways it makes sense.

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Daddy Clay

Re:Umbilical cord clamping 2 Years ago
I'd love to know where you researched this. Seems like a great topic for a DL episode. I'm putting this on our topic board right now. My middle was born naturally with the help of a midwife, but I don't remember any delay in cord clamping. I did cut my daughter's cord, which was ghastly and I wish I could unremember that. Who ever came up with that as a concept. Ugh.

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TheDadAbides

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
2 Years ago

Thanks for the heads up about cutting the cord . . . I was voluntold to have that honor, so I'm glad to know it won't be the beautiful event it's being marketed as. I seem to remember y'alls book saying that its a sho' nuff cord too. something like you have to put your back into it when you cut it?

Like I said, wikipedia has some links to some some studies.
Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbilical_cord

Most of the research I've done is on Google Scholar
as well as Clusty.

That's where I found this science daily article and this article in the Journal of Midwivery and Women's Health

I don't know how reputable these sources are, but all the searches I've done I haven't found much of an argument against delayed clamping.

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Daddy Clay

Re:Umbilical cord clamping 2 Years ago
Thanks for the research. We've got an episode on this topic on the production calendar now, so hopefully I will get to ask an OB/GYN or two about it.

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seanonymous

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
1 Year, 6 Months ago

Any chance cord blood banking can be rolled into this episode?

Judging by the high ratio of junk mail from ViaCord to recommendations from doctors, I've been writing them off as a scam. It seems the better thing to do is to donate to public cord banks and hope others continue to do the same.

As dads, I think we should know the answer to this, because if having one's own cord blood bank is truly worthwhile, we can buy a freezer and a backup generator for less than what ViaCord charges in the first year.

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pfanndad

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
1 Year, 6 Months ago

Cord Blood banking is a little more complicated then using a chest freezer in the basement.
My wife is a vet and we considered that option.
But between the cost, the chance of needing it and the whether there will be therapies available that use it, we decided to give #2 his cord blood right at the beginning, no waiting.
We'll do the same with #3.

#1 was an emergency C-sect so there was no choice.

If you want to bank, make sure your OB knows about this well before hand as they'll be making some of the arrangements I think.

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Daddy Clay

Re:Umbilical cord clamping
1 Year, 6 Months ago

The issue of keeping vs donating cord blood will be central to the piece. We've got a couple of great experts that are giving us interviews for this one.

My take at the moment is that donating cord blood is a pretty cool thing to do. Banking can be a lifesaver for families with a history of illness that cord blood can be used to treat, but the economics of banking make it hard to recommend as a standard practice.

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