Effect of Delayed Cord Clamping on Hemoglobin Level among Newborns in Rajiv Gandhi Government Women & Children Hospital, Puducherry

Introduction-Anemia is one of common disorders not only in adults but also found in infants too. In developing countries, prevalence of Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) is highest.Up to 50% of children become anemic by 12 months of age. A first step towards reducing anemia in infancy can be taken during birth is Delayed cord clamping that makes use of readily available blood from the feto-placental compartment, estimated roughly 120 ml/kg of fetal weight. These additional volumes of blood can supply extra iron amounting to 40–50 mg/kg of body weight. When this extra iron is added to the approximately 75 mg/kg of body iron that a full-term newborn is born with, the total amount of iron can reach 115–125 mg/kg of body weight, which may help prevent iron deficiency during the first year of life. Objectives-To compare the hemoglobin level at birth & 24 hours after birth in both the Group I(cord was clamped within 15 seconds of birth ) and Group II (clamped at 3 minutes)newborns. To correlate the cord clamping time with the Hemoglobin level of the term newborns. Methodology-Experimental design was adopted. 61 newborns (Group I – 30 and Group II31), selected through simple random sampling. Standardized. Sahli’s Hemoglobin meter was used to estimate the Hemoglobin from the cord blood at birth and capillary blood obtained by heel stick at 24 hours from the Newborns. Result and findings-The mean hemoglobin levels at birth and at 24 hours were 17.75 gms% ± 1.567 and 19.97 gms% ± 1.511, 16.97 gms% ± 1.134 and 19.59 gms% ± 1.395 for Group I and II respectively. The calculated‘t’ values (5.644 and 7.599 at birth and 24 hours) shows there is highly significant difference between Group I and II Hemoglobin levels.There was a positive correlation (r =0.591 at birth and r =0.4198 at 24 hours) found between cord clamping timing and the hemoglobin level.Conclusion-Delayed clamping group has higher range of hemoglobin levels at birth and 24 hours, therefore delayed clamping can be considered to improve the hemoglobin levels in newborns.