Slashdot Mirror
Cutting Umbilical Cord Early Eliminates Stem Cells
GeneralSoh writes "Delaying clamping the umbilical cord at birth may have far-reaching benefits for your baby, according to researchers at the University of South Florida's Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair — and should be delayed for at least a few minutes longer after birth. This new recommendation published in the most recent Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (14:3) notes that delaying clamping the umbilical cord allows more umbilical cord blood and crucial stem cells to transfer from mama to baby."
The kid's been attached to it for 9 months, and the last 2 minutes make _THAT_ much difference?
Is there an upload progress bar on the umbilical cord?
And they said she was crazy for keeping me attached for a year and breastfeeding me until I was 9. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW, NOSY SOCIAL WORKERS???
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
But if you cut it earlier, you can keep those stem cells and benefit from them, right? You're saying we should start giving all of that up?
Twinstiq, game news
A few minutes longer than.. what?
When my son was born a few years ago, the Doc didn't clamp the cord very quickly. Our baby also ended with a pretty decent case of jaundice and had to be under the "bili lights" for a few days, extending our hospital stay.
This can sometimes happen when the baby gets a big dose of red blood cells because he's a lot lower than the placenta (gravity) or because the cord isn't clamped very quickly. All those red blood cells die in a day or two, baby cannot break down/metabolize the dead RBCs correctly, and POOF, jaundice.
Just be careful. Jaundice can cause pleasant things like brain damage in neonates (due to immature blood/brain barrier).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilirubin#Toxicity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernicterus
With the first link, the chain is forged.
The time it takes for the mother to chew it off.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
that I wrapped it around my neck in utero. My siblings claim that this explains a lot about me.
You can access the actual research paper through this pubmed (national institutes of health) link. You may need to access it through your local university library to get further than the abstract. If you follow through as far as the link from the publisher (Wiley Interscience) you'll see that the paper was actually accepted and published online back in February.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Allowing junior to get those extra stem cells means the placenta won't be as delicious.
Seems like when they do finally clamp it, it might be a good idea to clamp it as close to the mother as possible. Let the kid still absorb whatever is in the cord.
Technoli
I find this out 6 weeks late. When did having kids become like buying technology?
Seriously though, there are some cases where that might not be possible. My first son was an emergency c-section. I don't know how long it was before he started breathing but it felt like forever.
Thing2 was a scheduled c-section and I had him in my arms almost immediately. I honestly don't know how quickly they clamped.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
This is rather old news.
My son is almost 14. We had in our birth plan to leave the cord alone for a while so he would get the stem cells.
Unfortunately, it was wrapped around his neck, and additionally tied in a true knot, so when he came out pale and lifeless, the doctor clamped it off and handed me the scissors.
He turned out fine, BTW.
Isn't this really old news? When my son was born last August they did exactly this for exactly these reasons..
Move along. Doctors have known about this for a long time. Real doctors, even.
My wife and I decided to have our child at a birthing center, and this was one of the reasons.
I was very skeptical of not delivering in a hospital, but after doing some research I was intrigued. We went to the orientations at both a local hospital, and at a local birthing center. In both orientations I asked how long they leave the umbilical cord attached. The hospital doctors didn't see any reason not to cut it immediately, and kind of looked at me like "oh, you are one of THOSE people." The midwife at the birthing center said something like "We follow the most recent lifelong study completed by in which recommends leaving the cord on for due to the increased supply of stem cells." where X was something between 2 and 5 minutes, I forget the number now.
The linked article does a great job of pointing out that this isn't new. What is shocking is that most OBs don't know it. The only disadvantage of this is that it makes it harder to harvest fetal stem cells from the placenta. In our case, I don't think our donation met the minimum requirements (although we sent it in anyway). I love the idea that our son got a head start because we did what science has already known to be correct, and that perhaps someone else's life could be saved by the donation.
If you plan on having a child, it is worth every moment to do your research. And don't blindly trust the doctors.
You're thinking of Rob Reiner.
It is safe to assume that this news has arrived too late for anyone reading this.
Mom owes me some stem cells!!!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Many years ago, when I was a Usenet junkie, I frequented the abortion newsgroups and argued endlessly, pro-choice of course. (hey it was the 90's..I was bored.) I did some research and wrote this treatise on the incredible changes that occur in the circulatory system at birth.
For example, did you know that first expansion of the lungs actually reverses blood flow in sections of the central circulation? It's actually quite cool. In fact, as I wrote.."Immediately following birth, the umbilical vessels constrict. The arteries close first, and if the umbilical cord is not clamped or severed for a minute or so, blood continues to flow from the placenta to the newborn through the umbilical vein, adding to the newborn's blood volume."
But the reversing blood flow stuff is amazing.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
LOL. slammed by the 'professional' named, "trisexualpuppy"
Sez the AC.
It was during my traEMS education, around 1996 that I was told to always squeeze the umbilical cord between two fingers in order to empty it and transfer all blood in it to the child before clamping and cutting it...
it works both ways, for the mother too
you carry some cells of your mother's genetic profile, and your mother carries some cells of your genetic profile
i wonder how long after birth these genetic transfers persist?
years maybe? a cell or two here and there?
weird for the father too: have a child with a woman, and something with half of your genetic profile persists in her body
a little in the spleen there... a little in the brain here
creepy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of the reasons a baby is given a vitamin K shot at birth is to address their low blood levels at birth, which can also be addressed by leaving the cord attached until the placenta stops pumping and the cord turns white. This of course helps with other issues, particularly in having enough red blood cells to adequately transport oxygen to the organs. I hadn't heard the stem cell argument, which I'd be less concerned about but sounds like another good reason to wait.
Of course the main reason vitamin K is administered by shot and in infant formula is for blood coagulation in case the baby is injured in the first month when levels are low. Hopefully a one-month-old is not exposed to many circumstances which would result in cuts and bruises. It seems possible that there are developmental reasons for the initially low v-K levels (because nature/evolution often has a reason for such discrepancies), but I am not aware of any research on the topic.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Damn, I know plenty of people in their 30s who mothers still haven't cut the umbilical cord! Those guys must be chock full of stem cells and nutrients.
Um... RTFA.... that's how the original describes it, timothy quoted, maybe he should have provided a cites page. Would you prefer MLA, APA or the rare Chicago style?
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
The bigger problem is that no blood is actually passed "from mama to baby". The maternal and fetal circulations are (almost) completely separated. Except for few red blood cells that accidentally pass (esp. around birth and trauma), the placental barrier keeps the two circulations separate. Oxygen, nutritional material and waste are passed by diffusion, with no contact between the two blood pools. The reason for this is that the baby's blood type may be different than the mother's (because of paternal genes) and if the blood would have mixed, than there would have been an immune reaction against the baby's blood.
Delayed vs. early clamping affects the distribution of blood between the newborn baby and the placenta. The major determinant for this is the relative hight of each other, due to the rule of communicating vessels.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Dangerously simplistic.
The world is more detailed and weirder than you realize. You would do better to grasp this fact and step out from the Dunning-Kruger zone.
more umbilical cord blood and crucial stem cells to transfer from mama to baby
Who wrote this crap? Transfer from PLACENTA to baby, yes. From MAMA to baby, no. Absolutely not, under normal circumstances.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And she has been saying this for years. Along with, don't take the baby away right after birth, skin to skin contact right after birth is important and let the kid nurse. Have your babies at home, you go to the hospital when you are sick and pregnancy is not a disease.
Humans are the only animals with navels, grotesque intentional scars.
A few minutes longer than.. what?
A few minutes longer than they currently do, obviously.
My other first post is car post.