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In the baby, evidence has shown that allowing the cord blood to keep flowing for a few minutes increases the iron stores. In the developing world, where anaemia is a big problem, practices have now changed to delay clamping and the World Health Organization has dropped early clamping from its guidelines.
When the Mermaid was born, her cord was cut almost immediately. Oh how I wish I had known what I know today! With the Guppy's birth, we left the cord attached to her until it stopped pulsating, I believe it was anywhere from 15-30 minutes.
The benefits of delaying cord clamping is proven. There is no need to rush and deny the newborn baby all the nutrients that his or her body is still trying to receive from the placenta. It doesn't take much to just say, No, we want our baby to remain attached to the placenta for now.
Another practice involving delaying cord clamping in infants is Lotus Birth, in which the baby remains attached to the placenta until it falls off naturally, usually in 3-6 days. I find Lotus Birth intriguing, and I am thinking of considering it for our next child.
What are your views on cord clamping? Did you delay cord clamping with your children, or perhaps you had a Lotus Birth? I would love to hear your thoughts/experiences/opinions!
2 comments:
We wanted to delay, it was in our birth plan. But I also wanted baby placed on my chest immediately. The two didn't mesh as our cord was too short and baby barely reached my tummy.
So after a minute or so they did cut the cord so I could hold him.
Oh well, of all the things in our plan that was not at the very top of my list of interventions I had to avoid, kwim?
OK so I know this is a really old post, but I just thought this was worth commenting on. I have a degree in animal agriculture and in my management classes we were expressly told NOT to cut the cord EVER on a normal delivery of a foal or a calf to allow the baby to get the maximum amount of nutrients and blood from mom. I remember thinking, huh, wonder why we do that for humans?
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