Leaving the cord to pulsate?

[harrowgreen]

Probably should put this in Childbirth, but more traffic here.

Am 33wks with #3 and confused about leaving the cord to pulsate after delivery.

With #1 we had no issues whatever we did (can't actually remember - was a pretty horrible time). With #2 (nice and straightforward) we left the cord until it had stopped. A week later we were readmitted for severe newborn jaundice and spent two nights in the NICU. I do not want to go through that again.

Our pediatrician at the time said the jaundice was likely caused by the cord pulsating too long (and giving him more red blood cells than he could cope with). So now I'm concerned about this happening again.

I've done some research into it, but am finding it hard to differentiate between actual medical knowledge and hippy/agenda-laden/panicky advice.

Can anyone sum up the current recommendations? Thanks.

Here is a good summary.

According to that article the NICE recommendations are being changed, but I'm not sure whether that's happened yet or not.

Also the WHO recommends delayed cord clamping. This is from website [[http://www.who.int/elena/titles/cord_clamping/en/]]:

"Late cord clamping approximately (one to three minutes after birth) is recommended for all births while initiating simultaneous essential newborn care.
"Early cord clamping (less than one minute after birth) is not recommended unless the neonate is asphyxiated and needs to be moved immediately for resuscitation."

Link fail. Try again: www.who.int/elena/titles/cord_clamping/en/

Here's an informative PDF about it by the NCT.

One last comment from me and then I'll stop, sorry! I should have said, the NICE recommendations are being reviewed, not necessarily changed.

I believe the chances of Jaundice are slightly increased with delayed cord clamping, it's the way it looked from my research, look into he differences between Physiological Third stages and Active third stages, it's one of the things that tends to come up. It's fairly standard practice to delay cord clamping, but if you ask for it not to happen they should clamp fairly quickly.

I'm having an active third stage of labour this time round due to a PPH last time (DD also had jaundice), so they will clamp straight away and then put me on a drip to help my uterus contract.

Awesome: thanks. Will take a look.

For me - DC1 had almost immediate cord clamping, DC2 had delayed clamping. DC2 has been the healthier of the two (DC1 had newborn jaundice).

All mine (besides my preemies twins) had delayed cord clamping. We left it maybe 2 minutes (longer for DS5 for EMC reasons) and then clamped. None of them had jaundice, so I think it really depends on how long it's left un-clamped, and how healthy your placenta/cord is.