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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."
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.
Oh, if only they had done extensive research on it, instead of just saying "Sounds reasonable, lets publish!" then they would have caught that major flaw! Too bad you weren't around to keep them honest!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
I would think that newborns are at a critical developmental stage and need all the help they can get. If I sucked out a significant portion of your blood, it would set you back a bit and you've been around more than 9 months.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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.
Is it more important to get your kid of to a good start or save those stem cells in case you need them later? Besides, there should still be some left over.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
The kid's been attached to it for 9 months, and the last 2 minutes make _THAT_ much difference?
The cord is then under very different circumstances. At that point it is no longer bathed in a protective moistening medium and it is no longer getting nearly as much oxygen. Cutting the cord further reduces the oxygen level and gives it more surface area to dry out.
There are quite a few things relating to circulation that don't happen until a few moments after birth (i.e. blood pressure, heart rate, heart valve changes). Perhaps a stem cell transference has something to do with that...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"The kid's been attached to it for 9 months, and the last 2 minutes make _THAT_ much difference?"
To be safe, use the Helicopter Parent method and leave it on until age 18.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes!
When the baby is pushed out through the birth canal it is *compressed* and blood is *sqeezed out* from the baby into the umbilical and placenta. I can't believe it took researchers so fucking long to figure out *basic physics*.
I was born premature and apparently needed a blood transfusion. The reason for the latter is probably because some doctor didn't want to wait a minute or so and wanted to be more "efficient". So DO NOT allow a doctor to clamp the chord for a minute or two after the baby is born. The baby needs that blood to thrive.
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.
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"
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.
It's also old news that giving birth on your back without moving around is just about the most painful and inconvenient way to do it, but birth wards continue to promote this because it is also the most convenient position for the doctor.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
I think that's a pretty important consideration, given the high incidence and terrible consequences of complications during childbirth.
You and David Carradine.
Have gnu, will travel.
United states has one of the highest infant mortality rate in the world. Sounds like our Best medicine money can buy, actually sucks pretty bad.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are quite a few things relating to circulation that don't happen until a few moments after birth (i.e. blood pressure, heart rate, heart valve changes). Perhaps a stem cell transference has something to do with that...
There are several valves in the embryo's heart (such as the foramen ovale) which allows a lot of the blood passing through the heart to avoid the lungs. A lot of the blood coming into the heart before birth is oxygenated from the umbilical cord, so it can get pumped right out without going to the lungs.
When the lungs become functional, pressure changes cause at least some of those valves to close immediately, so that the blood is now forced to go through the lungs before getting pumped back out to the body. These valves should close almost immediately to avoid deoxygenated blood being pumped out. That's really too quick to be directly affected by the stem cells. They -might- have something to do with later changes, where those valves permanently fuse shut, I don't know.
You may want to check some actual facts. As of 2009, the US was 46th out of 224. This definitely isn't something to brag about, but it's nowhere near the "highest". It's not even 3x the lowest...
could it be because our doctors have the skill to allow babies to be born that would be stillborn elsewhere, but then subsequently die from complications? This is a misleading statistic that doesn't take the whole picture into account.
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.
I don't know, I think newborns should be exposed to the free market system. If they cannot offer goods and services, they must not receive them. Providing free food, free shelter, and free healthcare to newborns is a slippery slope to a welfare state. /s
"Probably" just doesn't cut it. While delayed clamping of the umbilical cord may have a number of benefits to premature newborns, there are several other reasons for neonatal anemia (and hence, your need for a transfusion of RBCs) that have nothing to do with the timing of clamping.
Also, several of the reasons for prematurity may cause birth with low Apgar scores. When a baby is born with low/zero heart rate or does not breathe soon after delivery, keeping it attached to the placenta is not going to give you better results than prompt clamping and institution of proper resuscitation.
Please try to exercise more common sense when you leave your opinions in a public forum. Oh, forget that last sentence, this is slashdot, after all.
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.
Well, they willingly exchange pee for breastmilk...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!