Thursday, October 06, 2011

Penny Simpkin on delayed cord clamping

Those of you who aren't interested in birth right now can probably skip this one...but for those of you who are pregnant, might become pregnant, or just like hanging around pregnant women...here you go. :)

This video is of Penny Simkin, a well-known author, doula, and childbirth educator, sharing the reasons for delaying cord clamping after birth. I found the information at the end, regarding oxygen levels and the need for resuscitation to be very interesting. The current standard, of course, is to clamp immediately and whisk the baby away from mama for resuscitation efforts. And while I'm exceedingly grateful for the amazing neonatal nurses and their sometimes lifesaving work, I wonder if we'd get even better results bringing the nurses and instruments to the mama, and keeping baby attached?

3 comments:

Sara Reed said...

Hi Emily,
Thanks for sharing with us the interesting video on delayed cord clamping. You may be interested to learn that patients will be able to collect their cord blood even if they choose to delay cutting the cord.See this blog post: http://www.mazecordblood.com/blog/?p=253
Let me know what you think.
Yours,

Chris said...

This is really interesting! It seems like doctors should know more about this kind of thing! Slightly scary that they don't.

Emily (Laundry and Lullabies) said...

Christopher, I completely agree! Welcome to the world of the doula - non-medical professionals who occasionally know more than the doctor. ;( It is a bizarre situation.