After years of lobbying by the NCT, medical bodies and senior doctors, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which advises the NHS in England what medical practice it should follow, is now reviewing its cord-clamping guidance, which it originally published in 2007. Doctors hope its new advice, due in June 2014, will lead to delayed clamping replacing immediate clamping as the NHS's standard procedure.
It is thought that infants may be at risk of becoming anaemic by being denied the chance to receive as much as a third of their blood volume from the placenta through the cord. Anaemia can later be associated with brain development and can affect cognitive ability.
Influential bodies such as the World Health Organisation now urge delay, while research published by medical journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Cochrane Collaboration has also helped prompt a move away from immediate clamping.
A Swedish study published in the BMJ in 2011, which found that infants who had had delayed cord-clamping at birth had larger than usual iron stores at four months and were less likely to be anaemic, has proved influential.
The Guardian 25 April 2013
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