Delayed Cord Clamping with Dr. Nicholas Fogelson

I'm snatching breaks of time between cooking for our dinner co-op to watch Dr. Nicholas Fogelson speaking about Delayed Cord Clamping. It's definitely worth watching!

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Cord cutting

I don't know whether to feel glad or sad at reading this article about delayed cord cutting from the Toronto Star. I'm glad that medical studies are finally focusing on how leaving the cord intact after birth significantly improves a baby's condition. (Or should I say, "...how cutting or clamping the cord immediately after birth significantly worsens a baby's condition." It's not that delayed cord cutting is an added "benefit," but that early cord clamping is a "harm.")

Thing is, this shouldn't be news at all! Doctors and midwives have known this for hundreds of years. Anne Frye's textbook Holistic Midwifery extensively documents this, if you want more detailed information.

Here's a quote from Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) in 1801:

Another thing very injurious to the child, is the tying and cutting of the navel string too soon; which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.

I have a few issues with the newspaper article, as glad as I am that the topic has made it into the news:

1. The picture. Okay, I see lots of gowned people surrounding a newborn baby. Where is the MOTHER??? Why isn't the baby on her chest??!! Images like these reinforce the idea that birth is a medical procedure, and that the mother is really not all important in the whole process. It reminds me all too much of the Monty Python sketch I posted earlier.

2. Researcher Eileen Hutton's quote: "It's an intervention that has the potential to have a (positive) impact on a large number of babies and at a very low cost. This benefits the baby without any real down sides for mom."
NOT cutting the cord is an "intervention?" I vehemently disagree. Clamping and cutting the cord is the intervention; leaving the cord intact is simply normal human physiology.

Erasmus Darwin. Zoonomia. Vol III 3rd ed. London 1801:302

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