A nursing study at the University of Rhode Island found that a five, or even one minute delay in the clamping of healthy infants’ umbilical cords, is indicative of increased iron stores and brain development.
The principal investigators of the study were Debra A. Erickson-Owens, a URI professor of nursing and certified nurse-midwife, and the former head of the midwifery department, Judith S. Mercer. The investigators found that at four months, infants born at term, receiving delayed cord clamping, had greater ferritin (the protein that stores iron) levels and increased brain myelin in areas important for early life functional development.
“The babies who received later clamping had almost double the amount of ferritin than babies whose cord was clamped right away,” said Erickson-Owens. “Similarly, dendrites, the cells that make up myelin need more iron. So kids in the delayed group had more myelin in their brains.”
Iron is ubiquitous and a very important mineral.
“If babies are anemic, they don’t do as well cognitively or in muscle tone,” said Mercer.
Mercer adds that a study was conducted in which babies with low levels of iron typically grow up to have lower IQs by eight or ten points.
“There are also some studies on one year olds showing they didn’t do as well if they were anemic,” Mercer said.
The project began in October of 2012 and enrolled 73 healthy babies. In order to find people for the study, the team went to clinics around Providence, attended breastfeeding and birthing classes, left brochures, had a radio spot and left flyers and posters.
“If women weren’t interested, we never coerced them,” Erickson-Owens said. “We simply had them sign something and we would follow up with a call.”
An issue the study ran into was with follow up. After four months, 64 babies remained in the study. Erickson-Owens said that it is more difficult to keep healthy babies born to term in the study than premature.
“With premature babies, parents are more likely to bring them in to make sure they’re healthy and everything is okay,” Erickson-Owens said. “With term babies, life gets busy and it’s harder to remember.”
Despite the validity of the study, delayed cord clamping has yet to become common.
“It takes 17 years for evidence to get into practice,” said Erickson-Owens. “It is hard to change something that has been done for so long. In maternity care, the consumer is usually the driver for practice change.”
Currently, Mercer lives in San Diego and is working on a project on “cord milking” for babies in need of resuscitation at birth. Mercer had been a midwife for 25 years at the point she started her research.
“I was actually at a homebirth one day and I had a baby that just looked terrible,” said Mercer. “I did all the appropriate measures, but I didn’t cut the cord which continued to pulse. The baby started to get color back in his body and two minutes later he started breathing very quietly, got his muscle tone back, and opened his eyes.”
Mercer said that experience was very different then from anything was on the books.
“I felt like I saw a miracle at that point,” Mercer said.
Erikson-Owens has been a midwife since 1978 and had noticed similar benefits with delayed cord clamping. Mercer points out, however, that it isn’t enough to simply give their clinical opinion–everything must be proven with research.
As of now, only the four month results have been published, but Eriksen-Owens says that the results from the 12 month follow up will be published soon.