Talk:Umbilical cord

Cutting

This page regarding the umbilical cord should take in the rights of the mother and father being educated that no clamping or cutting of the cord need be done at all. ONLY if the umbilical cord tore or for placenta previa need a cord be clamped for the emergency protection to the child. The reasons a cord may tear is if the child was dropped. The reason a placenta previa caused the need of the cord clamped is a surgical error of a knife going into the placenta or the cord.

The baby has only about an ounce more blood then his/her weight at the time born. For example a 9-pound infant only creates 10 ounces of blood (300 ml). To clamp the umbilical cord early to take away the rights of the infant of the nutrients of the placenta blood, is to violate equal security to the child. It is also a criminal offense against the person, and requires equal protection of the criminal laws of every nation.

The child, may live, after the assault. But as a impaired and compromised child with lower immunities, and anemic. The child will have a lower IQ with learning disadvantages and lower opportunities in the field of competitions.

The child will take from 6 weeks to 6 months to recreate the deprived blood. The child may never ever catch up from being anemic as he / she is constantly growing.

The internal increase of autism, holes in the heart, stroke, heart attacks can all be related to the original cause hasty umbilical cord clamping.

Autism: In the 1970's, there were 1 in 30,000 children with Autism, today, the children under 11 years of age are 1 in 110. All will be found to have been deprived 20 to 50 percent total blood volume by being harvested of their placenta blood.

The hospitals and their staff and policies have being doing this early clamping and taking the palcenta and placenta blood in secret every since they got women to birth in insitutions. Why? The medical fields need blood for consumer products and their services in operations and transplants. It is political. It creates billions in medical services and higher costs. The USA baby business needlessly costs $20 billion for 4 million babies. But the babies should not be picked on. The STRONG DO NOT PICK ON THE WEAK.

The babies are vulnerable by age, sex, color, race, or mental or physical disadvantages. The babies are not able to give informed consent to donate blood, they are not over age 17, and are not 110 pounds and known to be in good health. The babies owe no duty to cure the sick, they did not cause another's disorder. Leave them alone. The duty of society is to protect the child.

See a medical point of view at: www.cordclamping.com and a demonstration at a autism conference in November 2002.

The pioneers and many in developing lands practiced or still practice primal birth care and treatment, leaving the cord alone, as what I call left intact to keep the child a biological reciprocal sealed unit. This method of care and protection to the child (no cord infections, no hernias, the baby strong with all their blood),is no longer called primal birth, but is now known as the Lotus Birth.

This name was given in honour of Clare Lotus Day, who watched the monkeys, who did not tear off the placenta and cord, but let it dangle until it fell off in a day or two. She too wanted her child's cord left intact, and birthed as in a primal birth in a San Francisco hospital. She has recently died and her Lotus Birth Child, but the name primal birth is given a more pleasant name.

For more information of rights to the mothers to have a primal birth, in a home birth or hospital, please visit www.lotusbirth.com

Sincerely, Donna Young Natural Birth Education Box 504 Dawson Creek, BC V1G 4H4 Canada tel/fax: 1-250-782-9223 email: dyoung@pris.ca

• If you would like to contribute to the article, please read about NPOV. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. - Nunh-huh 06:19, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On a side note, I was recently informed that, at least overhere in the Netherlands, it's common practice to wait with clamping until (most of) the blood has receded into the newborn baby, unless, of course, there is a medical indication for clamping earlier, so I personally doubt the benefit of keeping the umbilical cord attached to the placenta has such benefits as claimed. On top of that, I really doubt that animals in the wild keep the entire placenta attached, since it wouldn't be very practical to carry around. In the births I've witnessed, the mother bit through the cord, and then proceded to eat the placenta (yes, herbivores do so too) helped by the rest of the pack/herd/troop.

But anyway, the article already references the article on Lotus Birth and, while that article could use some cleaning as well since it carries on to talk about uses for the placenta, I think that this information belongs there more than here.

Genetics

Am I correct in understanding that the umbilical cord contain's the child's DNA rather than the mother's? Nik42 04:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK, the answer is yes, it's the child's genetic material in the cord. Alex.tan 04:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Image

I removed the image, as it is a highly graphic one that quite frankly shouldn't be so hugely prominent on the page anyhow.

I reinserted the image. I don't think it's too "graphic" for this article. I did, however, reduce the size a little. Alex.tan 10:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Please remove it, the first image is too strong, wikipedia is not shownomercy.com, so please. --Shandris 12:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the image may be to graphic for the article. Removed link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ohnoitsjamie (talk • contribs)

I think the image is perfect because it shows how aggressive western obsterics are in cutting the cord. It is barbaric and damaging the brains of so many people. Template:Areseepee

Oohh evil westerners and their dogma medecine. Quit your xenophobic bullshit, please. I don't mind the picture, even though kids would probably be a bit shocked if they saw it (but then, maybe they wouldn't check this page anyway). Damaging the brains? Bah! The irony is killing me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.189.107.169 (talk) 12:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

and then what?

I've been trying to find out what happens to the cord after it is removed, something which, amazingly, I can't find on the interent. Do they put into the bin, given to medical student or what? This is probably an obvious question, but I think that there should be a note on this page about it for completeness and clarity. Sdrawkcab 18:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)sdrawkcab

There is mention of this in the Lotus Birth and Childbirth articles. Jay 09:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Once the placenta has been delivered and the neonate has been separated from it, the placenta and cord are examined by the midwife or obstetrician. They are looking to check that there are 3 vessels within the cord, that the membranes are intact and there are not pieces missing and that there are no large section of placenta missing. If there is a stillbirth or major congenital abnormalities the placenta and cord are sent to be examined by a pathologist. If there are no problems with the placenta and cord, the mother is asked if she wishes to keep it (as this is in keeping with some cultures) and if not it is discarded in medical waste.

Pain and blood loss

Discussion copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Jay 12:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Is cutting the umbilical cord painful to the newborn and/or mother ? Does it result in blood loss ? How do all other mammals cut the cord and how do they manage to control the blood loss ? Jay 12:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

See parturition. The umbilical cord is made of Wharton's jelly, not ordinary skin and connective tissue. There are no nerves, so cutting it is not painful. There is ordinarily no significant loss of either infant or maternal blood unless something goes wrong. I am not certain of the range of variations of placental and cord structure in most other mammals, but suspect that it either shrivels and falls off (like the stump of umbilical cord of a human baby) or is consumed by the mother (which recycles the protein, and reduces tissue that would attract scavengers or predators). alteripse 15:19, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

For animals: the mother bites the cord apart, and it dies and falls off after a short while.

Make up and Composition

Could we have some cites in this section? Particularly, I'd be interested in which the medical texts call arteries and veins, since I'd imagine it would depend on whether you viewed it from the mother's or the baby's point of view. Thanks. Skittle 14:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Historical treatment

Is anyone able to info on what was done with the umbilical cord historically? Pontificake 21:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is actually incorrect in its description of umbilical arteries and veins. The cord contains 2 arteries. These remove blood from the fetus return it to the placenta. There is one umbilical vein and this brings blood from the placenta and delivers it to the fetus (this is oxygen and nutrient rich blood). The article says the opposite thing.

Embryonic Attachment

Why does this article not go into detail where the umbilical cord connects to the various locations inside the fetus?

Wikimike 23:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Studies

New study in the British Medical Journal reports that delayed cord clamping is beneficial and early clamping is harmful. Early cord clamping needs to be banned but the word is not getting out fast enough! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/17/ncord117.xml areseepee 22 Aug 2007 (UTC)

References

I fixed the format of the existing references and added one more. The article still needs more. Also did some minor copy-editing. Flyguy649^talk_contribs 05:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

My mistake for the copyright error. Just would like to see more information/studies on the main page on harmful practice of early cord clamping. areseepee 22 Aug 2007 (UTC)

The part of the article, dealing with Cord Blood Banking practice is rather controversial. Check for neutrality needed!

The banking comment is very controversial. In fact, much of cord banking is for donation purposes. Stem cells harvested from umbillical cords is a valuable source for augmenting the National Marrow Donor Program. This comment needs to be included along with the very stilted "thou shall not harm thy baby by selling its umbillical cord" diatribe