How long did it take to cut the umbilical cord of your babies? Did they cut it right away or wait 2 or 3 minutes as recommended for a few years? Because for decades the children have cut the cord as if they were at risk of something terrible not to do it right away, which seems to be born with a countdown clock that has 10 seconds left to reach zero with dire consequences if that happens, and it turns out that there is no hurry because waiting is better.
We know that wait 2 or 3 minutes After delivery, while the cord is still beating, it has the short-term benefit of getting more blood to the baby, which translates into more iron, more hemoglobin, a greater antioxidant effect and a decrease in inflammation in cases of induced births . And in the long term? Is there any benefit? Well, a recent study says yes, because it has been seen that Children whose cords were cut 3 minutes after birth have a better neurological development at 4 years of age.
Cord cut: 10 seconds versus more than three minutes
The study researchers were clear about the early benefits of waiting to cut the umbilical cord, but they had doubts about whether those benefits lengthened over time and decided to see what differences there may be beyond 12 months of age.
In Babies and more, late cord clamping could save 100,000 premature babies each yearThey took a sample of 382 children in Sweden, all of them babies born at term after a low-risk pregnancy and were followed up to 4 years of age. These children were divided into two groups and while the cord was clamped on one 10 seconds of birth, the others were made after 3 minutes.
After four years, they evaluated the 263 children who were still in the study with several tests and tests (intelligence test, motor skills, social, problem solving, communication skills and behavior) and saw that the group of the three minutes they had better social skills and more fine psychomotor skills than others. In the evaluation of the intellectual quotient they saw that there were no differences. This benefit, the improvement, was most pronounced in boys, because in the case of girls it was not considered statistically significant.
Why did they have more skills?
For the same reason that at 6 months they have more iron, because in those 2 or 3 minutes of nothing, a quantity of blood from the placenta passes to the negligible baby. It is estimated that 80 ml passes during the first minute after birth, becoming 100 ml when 3 minutes have passed. This volume may seem very little for an adult, but for a baby it is a lot, and makes it go from 75 mg of iron per kilo of weight with which it is born to have about 115-125 mg / kg. This increase is a wonderful tool to prevent anemia in the first year of life, especially in those babies who are slow to accept complementary feeding, and it is also useful for proper brain development.
In Babies and more Delaying the umbilical cord cut may reduce the risk of anemia in babiesAnd why haven't they always done that way?
If you ask yourself this question, tell them that it has not always been done that way because for a while it was thought that it was harmful to wait. On the one hand, they thought that the risk of maternal hemorrhage I was older and on the other, there were risk of jaundice in the baby, by passing too much blood. Recent studies have seen that the risk of bleeding is the same, the cord is cut before or after, and that the risk of jaundice begins to increase after 3 minutes. That is why the current recommendation is that of wait about 3 minutes, because at that time more blood passes, beneficial for the baby, without the symptoms and problems that were thought to occur.
In this regard, it seems that, once again, the man reached out where he did not have to put it (with good intention, of course, but now we have to back down). Nature seems to have planned that once the baby is born the placenta will continue to pass blood for a few minutes (if nothing is done, there comes a time when it stops doing so). When the man arrived and cut early, the children's development may have worsened and increased cases of anemia. Then the baby is blamed, who does not eat enough iron-rich foods or the mother and father, who do not do enough to eat them, when everything comes because from birth it was left with low iron reserves.
So you know, if you want your child to have good iron stores and therefore a lower risk of anemia, if you want him to develop better neurologically and, in general, to have all the benefits associated with having a greater blood volume at Be born, talk to the professionals who will attend the delivery about it, because it is important and because it has been recommended for years in the birth guidelines of the Ministry of Health.
