Optimal cord management

Recognising the intact umbilical cord and placental circulation as an essential life-support system for newborn babies as they transition to extra-uterine life has required a lot of unlearning of well-intentioned but harmful habits that interrupt it. We are not there yet. We still need to learn more about the way to get the best out of extended physiological transition for more preterm infants. In the meantime, one of the barriers to wider implementation of delayed cord clamping strategies has been the number of infants where the process is not allowed or interrupted early because of perceptions that immediate resuscitation was required. This perceived urgency was probably one of the drivers for umbilical cord milking strategies, which allowed a measurable degree of placental transfusion to be demonstrated on a shorter timeline than was required with delayed cord clamping. Important physiological work by Douglas Blank and colleagues1 published in this journal highlighted the markedly different haemodynamic patterns observed in cerebral blood flow and blood pressure with immediate cord clamping, umbilical cord milking and physiological transition. In particular, the surges in pressure and flow observed with milking were alarming. The systematic review and meta-analysis of umbilical cord milking by Haribalakrishna Balasubramanian and colleagues …