Speaker 1: The information in this podcast is provided for education and
Speaker 1: research information only.
Speaker 2: It is not a substitute for professional health advice. Welcome everyone,
Speaker 2: I'm Bridget Maloney and today we're going to do a
Speaker 2: quick kick and it's going to be about delayed cord clamping.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty we recorded episode thirty seven all
Speaker 2: about the umbilical cord. We still get questions about delayed
Speaker 2: cord clamping, so this quick kick we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about what it is and what to expect. When we
Speaker 2: recorded the EPP four years ago, delayed cord clamping was
Speaker 2: becoming routine for vaginal births and most caesarean sections. You
Speaker 2: can still jump onto Google and see people saying that
Speaker 2: doctors are against delayed cord clamping and that as a
Speaker 2: birthing mum you have to advocate for this. However, delayed
Speaker 2: cord clamping is now recommended by professational bodies like the
Speaker 2: Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Speaker 2: or RANSKOG and the World Health Organization. What isn't yet
Speaker 2: routine practice is delayed cord clamping in premiature births. Previously
Speaker 2: the standard practice for premier babies was to clamp the
Speaker 2: umbilical cord immediately after birth so the baby could be dried, wrapped,
Speaker 2: and if necessary, resuscitated with ease. Two Australian studies have
Speaker 2: shown that delaying cord clamping for one to two minutes
Speaker 2: and that's all it takes for a premature baby and
Speaker 2: keeping particular care to keep the baby warm can increase
Speaker 2: the chance of survival of the premie shortly after birth.
Speaker 2: There needs to be further research for how best to
Speaker 2: do this with the sickest of premature babies. These are
Speaker 2: the ones that are born really early. But this is
Speaker 2: a change of practice that has slowly been reflected in
Speaker 2: obstetric guidelines. As you're listening to this quick kick, it
Speaker 2: might be worthwhile to remember that in non premature births,
Speaker 2: there are still some situations where delayed cord clamping is
Speaker 2: not routine, and that is is if there's an issue
Speaker 2: with the placenta, or the court or mum needs immediate
Speaker 2: attention because of a postpartum hemorrhage, or in some cases
Speaker 2: where the baby needs resuscitation. We love going back to
Speaker 2: old apps and picking out these quick kicks, so let's
Speaker 2: do that. Now and here what doctor pat has to
Speaker 2: say about delayed cord climbing.
Speaker 1: The benefits are probably something we're just starting to learn
Speaker 1: more about now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've read something. I've got the stats are wrong,
Speaker 2: but it can have that baby's iron stores for the
Speaker 2: first few months of flight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, more iron, more blood volume. Is a fair bit
Speaker 1: of volume in that because it's not that much blood
Speaker 1: and newborn baby anyway, So what's sitting in the cord
Speaker 1: is actually a.
Speaker 2: Useful the percentage of the baby's blood.
Speaker 1: And then exactly the benefit of the stem cells watch
Speaker 1: this space. Yeah, So it's easy to do, and really
Speaker 1: the only scenario where it really can't theoretically be done
Speaker 1: is if the parents wish to donate or collect the
Speaker 1: cord blood for storage.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was my next question, because.
Speaker 1: You can't elp get into the baby and storage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one or the other. Yeah, so that's a problem.
Speaker 1: And then the other scenario that makes it difficulty is
Speaker 1: if there's some other sort of emergency going on. So
Speaker 1: four example of thormans having a postpartum hemorrhage, then the
Speaker 1: first thing you want to do to get that hemorage
Speaker 1: under controls to get the percenter out yes, and that's
Speaker 1: difficult to do with baby still attached, So you might
Speaker 1: clamp and cut the cord forg go the benefits of
Speaker 1: the delayed cord clamp and then put traction on the
Speaker 1: remaining bit of the court teble percenta come out. And
Speaker 1: that's a scenario that can happen at vaginal birth, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately it's a bit more common at caesarean section birth
Speaker 1: because the serian section is a bloody operation. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's blood around, and if the uterus is bleeding
Speaker 1: too much at caesar immediately after the baby comes out,
Speaker 1: then again, the way to stop that is to get
Speaker 1: the plucenter out. So that might require the baby to
Speaker 1: be the cord clamped and the baby passed over the
Speaker 1: pediatrician a little earlier than we wanted. But if we
Speaker 1: can control that bleeding by other means, by putting clamps
Speaker 1: on things, then we can wait. Did that last night?
Speaker 1: Just waited until the at of seas last night, just
Speaker 1: waited until the cord had stopped pumping. Yeah, and all
Speaker 1: of the blood was as much as possible if the
Speaker 1: cord blood was down in the baby. Maybe took a minute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not long that's the other thing.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, and then clamp and cut and as long
Speaker 1: and the baby was crying and mum wasn't bleeding, so
Speaker 1: what's the rush?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's becoming a standard at vaginal births and
Speaker 1: increasingly acceptable at sesaian section.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And it's still worthwhile that woman putting it
Speaker 2: in a birth plan though, isn't it just to make
Speaker 2: sure that everybody's on that page.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, because when I say standard, I mean not
Speaker 1: everywhere and not every day. Yes. So if it's something
Speaker 1: that mums have read something about and like the sound
Speaker 1: of as a potential healthy thing that can do for
Speaker 1: the baby that's not risky, then we should do that.
Speaker 1: So let us know.
Speaker 2: Yep. So this you mentioned just briefly about the cord blood.
Speaker 2: So there's two things you can do with the cord blood.
Speaker 2: You can either donate the cord blood and then that
Speaker 2: goes into like a public cord blood bank.
Speaker 1: Yes, so they collect some for each research purposes and
Speaker 1: some for a public run cord bank.
Speaker 2: Which can be used later on for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, four matched donations. So potentially if a child got
Speaker 1: a leukemia or something, then it may be possible in
Speaker 1: some circumstances to use a donation of cord blood stem
Speaker 1: cells from a bank.
Speaker 2: And somebody doing that might be motivated by altruism or
Speaker 2: why would somebody want to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, altruistic donation, that's what it's all about. And not
Speaker 1: every hospital collects for that purpose though, So collections tend
Speaker 1: to be done in big city hospitals where they're set
Speaker 1: up for it and where they've got a huge number
Speaker 1: of births per year and can collect a lot of blood.
Speaker 1: So if you are at a smaller community hospital, regional
Speaker 1: country hospital, whatever, and they don't offer that service, don't
Speaker 1: panic because the service has enough blood.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they're getting enough.
Speaker 1: From city hospitals for that purpose.
Speaker 2: But somebody might have it in their birth plan that
Speaker 2: if for some reason I can't have delayed cord clamping,
Speaker 2: then I'm willing to do cord blood donation. Is it
Speaker 2: something that you have to consent for?
Speaker 1: Yes, but don't panic if it's not offered at your hospital.
Speaker 2: Yes, yea, yeah, I think that's important. And then some
Speaker 2: you know, you see at advertised some people there's big
Speaker 2: companies that will restore your cord blood. Yeah, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: These quick kicks are chosen from our back catalog of
Speaker 2: episodes because of frequently asked questions we get. If you
Speaker 2: have a burning question, please pop into our speak pipe,
Speaker 2: which you can find the link on our website grow
Speaker 2: mybaby dot com dot au. While you're on our website,
Speaker 2: you can also check out our week by week program,
Speaker 2: which now for about eighty cents a day, you can
Speaker 2: access information from us and other pregnancy experts for your
Speaker 2: entire pregnancy, birth, and the early weeks of your postpartum.
Speaker 2: You get lifetime access too, so it's yours to refer
Speaker 2: back to for any subsequent babies you might have. Thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us. We hope that you have a
Speaker 2: great week. Keep well by fein out