When To Cut Umbilical Cord

There are mix opinion on when to cut the umbilical cord after baby is out. To understand better on what happen when baby is out from mother's body, below chart shows the blood transfusion after birth.

Placental transfusion takes place immediately after birth and the cord start to pulsates. Placental transfusion is the system that provides the baby with red blood cells, stem cells, immune cells and blood volume. Delayed cord clamping allows time for the placental transfusion, ensuring safe oxygen levels and blood volume in the baby.

Left: Cord containing baby’s blood
Right: Cord after placental transfusion

Here is a demonstration on the reason not to cut umbilical cord immediately after birth.

The usual practise in hospital is to clamp and cut the cord in less than 30 seconds after birth. Delayed cord clamping is best to be done once the cord stop pulsating or beyond 2 minutes after birth.

Do discuss this with gynae/mid-wife before birth. Once decided, put delayed cord clamping in the birth plan so that everybody (gynae/mid-wife/nurse) helping on the delivery knows when to cut the umbilical cord.

Warning:
The 2008 Cochrane review found that infants whose cord clamping occurred later than 60 seconds after birth had a statistically higher risk of neonatal jaundice requiring phototherapy.

Resources:
http://cord-clamping.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbilical_cord