FAO: Cord CLampers! and todd

Kevin wrote:
I don't think I have the entire thread.... but I had a related question.
We were contemplating storing the cord blood and one of the requirements of
the cord blood bank is that we need to cut the cord within 10 minutes of the
birth.

How long does the cord pulse for?

How long does it typical take for the cord to be cut, I'm assuming I'll be
instructed to cut it a few minutes after birth.

Does the clamp come after the cut?

I'm not to clued up on cord blood donation but I thought it was taken
from the placental side, so how quickly you cut the cord after birth
isn't really the issue, it's how quickly you can get the placenta out in
order to harvest the blood.
To get the placenta out quickly, they use a method known as active
management, they will inject your wife with an ecbolic (to keep the
uterine contractions up and make them strong), usually syntocinon as the
baby births, clamp the cord immediately in two places and ask you to cut
it between the clamps. This frees the baby from the placenta and your
wife and then they can concentrate on getting it out.
Physiological third stage can take a little longer, but not that much,
in a physiological third stage you just leave well enough alone and wait
on the placenta to arrive in it's own time, then cut the cord. Often
clamping isn't even needed because by that time the cord has naturally
clamped itself and ligated the umbilical vessels, although you can still
syringe blood out if needed, and sometimes you can milk the placenta to
get more blood.

H Schinske wrote:

Placenta weight has a nonlinear relation to the birth weight
and is an important predictor of birth weight. Together with the gestational
age and the maternal age and size, it explains 32% of the variability of birth
weight.

I've always been taught this too, bigger placentas make bigger blood
flow area and thus produces bigger babies. That being said Seth who was
over 11lb had a pretty small placenta, certainly not one of the biggest
I've ever produced, plus he had a side cord insertion too. And Rose who
stopped growing in the last weeks of pregnancy had the tiniest placenta
I've ever seen, I could fit it in my hand, it was only the size of a
little tea plate, as opposed to Amelia's whose was practically the size
of a dinner plate, but despite that Rose was an average weight when
born...although obviously didn't reach her full birth weight potential.

Andrea