Background Worldwide, millions of babies are born each day, and in many of these infants, the umbilical cord is severed and they must begin air-breathing to survive. These events dramatically change the infant’s circulation, transforming it from the fetal to the postnatal form, which then persists for the rest of its life[1,2]. However, if an infant is not breathing at birth, umbilical cord cla...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the impact of timing of clamping and obstetric, biological and socioeconomic factors on the iron stores of full-term newborns. METHODS Cross-sectional study between October 2011 and July 2012 in which hematological parameters were evaluated for newborns in Viçosa, MG, Southeastern Brazil. It involved collecting 7 mL of umbilical cord blood from 144 full-term not underweig...

A brief delay in clamping the umbilical cord results in a placental transfusion that supplies the infant with a major source of iron during the first few months of life. Cord circulation continues for several minutes after birth and placental transfusion results in approximately 30% more blood volume. Gravity influences the amount of placental transfusion that an infant receives. Placing the in...

BACKGROUND Delayed clamping of the umbilical cord increases the infant's iron endowment at birth and haemoglobin concentration at 2 months of age. We aimed to assess whether a 2-minute delay in the clamping of the umbilical cord of normal-weight, full-term infants improved iron and haematological status up to 6 months of age. METHODS 476 mother-infant pairs were recruited at a large obstetric...

OBJECTIVE To compare iron stores in infants born after elective caesarean section (CS) and a 30 s delay of umbilical cord clamping with those born vaginally after early (≤10 s) or delayed (≥180 s) cord clamping. DESIGN Prospective observational study with historical control. SETTING Swedish county hospital. POPULATION 64 infants born after elective CS were compared with a historical contr...

Fe deficiency is a common nutritional disorder during infancy, particularly in low-income countries. The Fe status of a breast-fed infant is strongly influenced by the body Fe content at birth, which is determined by factors that operate before birth (maternal Fe status before and during pregnancy; infant gestational age and birth weight) and at the time of delivery (the timing of umbilical cor...

The study was conducted at the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh India from June 2008 to October 2010. 200 mothers were selected for the study and informed consent using a predesigned proforma. The subjects were divided into 4 groups of 50 each wherein the umbilical cord was clamped at 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute and 2 minutes respectively...

Bhatt et al’s paper provides a good argument for ensuring that ventilation is established before clamping the umbilical cord (1). The possibility that very early clamping could explain the increased occurrence of intraventricular hemorrhage was proposed in 1988 by Hofmeyr (2) who showed that in human babies there was a marked rise in arterial pressure when the cord was clamped as late as 35 s a...