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Five Good Reasons to Delay Clamping the Cord

The Best Thing You Can Do for Mothers, Babies, Birth and Families is to Become Net Savvy!

I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson's hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen's session “Creating an Online Presence," gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too.  

  - Ina May Gaskin 

 I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”.  Laureen’s know-how and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet.  Laureen’s engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback” start to make sense.  Her passion is to reach the generation of young women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole of aggressive obstetrics.  I came away from the class today with lots of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting for readers.  This class will run again this coming Friday (August 22) and I heartily recommend it.  
- Gloria Lemay


 
REGISTER NOW! SPACE IS LIMITED! 

Cost: $35 per session 

Each session will be 60 minutes in length 

Creating An Online Presence
Sunday, September 7 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, September 19 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, September 22 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern 

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This session will include a case study of Dr. Amy and how we shoot ourselves in the collective feet by visiting and commenting on her website.  (PS Hope you enjoyed the Gotcha! page from our last email!)
Sunday, October 5 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, October 24 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, October 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern   

Here's some of the thoughts and ideas I have gleaned over the year s about leaving the umbilical cord to pulse until it stops.

  1. Leaving the cord to pulse does "no harm" and therefore should be encouraged. If you can think about what Nature intended, our ancestors way back before scissors and clamps were invented must have had to wait to deal with the cord/placenta until the placenta was birthed. They probably chewed it, ground it with rocks, or burned it through with hot sticks from the fire. The little teeth on the clamps indicate the traumatizing of the vessels is necessary to quell bleeding. [Editor's Note - Some midwives say that if you delay cutting the cord until an hour or so after the birth, there will be no bleeding at all from the stump.]
  2. Leaving the cord to pulse slows down the "fire drill" energy that many birth attendants get into after the baby is born. Leaving off the busyness of midwifery for a half hour allows the mother and baby undisturbed bonding time without a "project " going on i.e. the cord cutting instructions, explanations, jokes, etc. The father, too , is undisturbed and able to enjoy this "high" time without focusing on a job at hand.
  3. Educator Joseph Chilton Pierce in his book "Magical Child" makes ref to studies that were done on primates who gave birth in captivity and had early cord clamping. Autopsies of the primates showed that early cord clamping produced unusual lesions in the brains of the animals. These same lesions were also found in the brains of human infants when autopsied.
  4. In Rh neg women, many people believe that it is the clamping of a pulsing cord that causes the blood of the baby to transfuse into the blood stream of the mother causing sensitization problems. Robert S Mendelsohn, M.D., in his book "How to Have a Healthy Child. . . In Spite of Your Doctor" blames the whole Rh neg problem on too quick clamping of the cord. Especially in Rh neg mothers I urge midwives to wait until the placenta is out before thinking about cord clamping.
  5. I think it is interesting that scientists are now discovering that umbilical cord blood is full of valuable T-cells which have cancer fighting properties. A whole industry has sprung up to have this precious blood extracted from the placenta, put in a cooler with dry ice, and taken to a special storage facility to be ready in case the child gets cancer at some time in the future. This is human insanity of the first order. That blood is designed by Nature to go into that child's body at birth, not 30 yrs later! We need to acknowledge that there are things about the newborn circulation and blood composition that we just don't know and we need to bet that Mother Nature had things figured out pretty well for us to survive this long. Maybe the supposed need for Vitamin K in the newborn comes out of early cord clamping?
In my work (800 births), I have only given Vit K to one baby (on Day 8 after having blood on the umbilicus every day < l tsp.--it was probably unnecessary). I have only had one Rh neg woman who showed fetal cells in her blood (she had had a bad fall 2 days prior to birth). We have waited hours before cutting the cord and one couple never did cut it (just carried baby, cord and placenta around together for days). The nice thing about that was that it really limited the postpartum visitors list! This is called Lotus Birthing and Jeanine Parvati Baker, a midwife from Ca.,is the goddess of that method (author of Prenatal Yoga and Hygiea).

The only time I cut a cord before the placenta comes out is if I have a mother in a water tub and I'm worried about blood loss. Then you have to get both out onto a dry surface quickly and it's easier to hand baby over to an adult while Mom is lifted separately.

If the baby needs resuscitation, it is important to leave the cord and do all work on Mom's body. Cutting the back up oxygen supply doesn't make any sense at all.



This Web page is referenced from other pages containing related information about For Parents - How to Get the Best Care and Umbilical Cord Issues

 




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