Comment by uptownben | Hacker News Reader

Comment by uptownben | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I had considered storing cord blood for our second child (now 1 year old). We ordered the kit and in the delivery room the nurse had begun unpacking and asked us to sign a form authorizing it. She briefly explained the process where, after delivery, she would cut the cord immediately in order to "capture" as much as possible for storage. I guess we hadn't thought the whole thing through because this concerned us. It is my understanding that it is recommended that the new born be left with the cord intact for as long as possible, until the cord goes white (empty) because that blood makes up a large percentage of all the blood the baby has, which provides the baby with what s/he needs for the first part of his/her life. So by not letting this blood flow back into the baby we were essentially jeopardizing it's health from the get go. My wife and I are not doctors and this is only my opinion but we decided to not store the cord blood and let the baby have all of it, hopefully giving her a head start to a happy, healthy life. I would suggest reading up on what possible problems may arise when the cord is cut too early. Just something to take into consideration.

After the cord is clamped, how is the blood on the other side expected to get into the baby?

You don't clamp it. You wait (IIRC) 15-30 minutes before doing anything to it, to give it enough time to drain. The immediacy with which the cord is routinely clamped and cut rose quite a bit in the 80's and 90's. It only makes sense that you shouldn't tamper with nature so much as to cut off the cord from the baby immediately after birth, while there's still blood flowing through it.

I'm not really sure why doctors started doing that, but it reminds me of our society's pressure towards having everything natural seem perfect and sort of sterile, like when our grocery stores reject all but the most flawless produce. We wouldn't want our babies to be handed to us with all sorts of icky, biological stuff like still-intact umbilical cords attached.

Are you saying they are supposed to leave the baby attached to the placenta while the afterbirth is delivered? I would imagine that remaining attached to the afterbirth as it is delivered is an infection and antigen exposure risk for both the baby and the mother.

There seem to be differing opinions on that. A bit of a Googling suggests that you wait until the cord has stopped pulsing, which might be as soon as a few minutes.

I'm not sure why the risk of infection would increase with the cord intact versus it being cut (where germs could potentially get in anyway). The baby's and mother's blood don't mix, so even if there were a "wound" on the placenta where it came unattached, that would be on the mother's side.

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