Umbilical Cord Clamping Essay

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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
introduction: General hospital-based obstetric practice introduces clamping as early as 1 minute after the birth of the child. In birthing centers, this may be delayed by 5 minutes or more, or omitted entirely. Clamping is followed by cutting of the cord, which is painless due to the lack of any nerves. The cord is extremely tough, like thick sinew, and so cutting it requires a suitably sharp instrument. Provided that umbilical severance occurs after the cord has stopped pulsing (5-20 minutes after birth), there is ordinarily no significant loss of either venous or arterial blood while cutting the cord. Umbilical cord clamping is part of the third stage of labor, the time between delivery of the baby and the placenta (Rabe, et al.; 2007). Cut the umbilical cord represents the beginning of an independent life of newborn. There are umbilical cord clamps which combine the cord clamps with the knife. These clamps are safer and faster, allowing one to first apply the cord clamp and then cut the umbilical cord. After the cord is clamped and cut, the newborn wears a plastic clip on the navel area until the compressed region of the cord has dried and sealed sufficiently. The remaining umbilical stub …show more content…

The traditional teaching, before the 1980s, was that the newborn infant should be clearly breathing on his own before clamping the cord, and that it was safer to wait for cessation of pulsations in the cord. Pulsations of the cord are evidence of persistent fetal circulation. Pulsations are from the infant's heart continuing to pump blood back to the placenta. Transition from placental to pulmonary respiration depends upon closure of shunts in the heart, the foramen ovale and ductus arteriosus, and placental blood must be transferred to the capillaries that supply the alveoli (Mercer & Skovgaard,

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