Gail Hertz writes:
>1. Delayed clamping of the cord causes a higher volume of blood to enter
>the baby - the problem is greater, the smaller the baby.  [The plasma
>(liquid) part of the blood can pass through the vessel walls but the red
>cells stay in the vessels.]
>
>2. "Stripping the cord" - that is squeezing the cord blood into the baby
>has the same effect as 1.
>
>3. holding the baby below the mom at delivery - same effect as 1 again.



Thanks for the education, Gail, and others.  I've learned a lot!  I think it
is interesting that reasons 2 and 3, above, are both cultural practices --
obviously not what happens naturally during human childbirth.  But I'm
curious about what happens when you just leavecord alone.  This is surely
what happened throughout most of human prehistory and history, and is still
what happens throughout most of the world today -- and yet the vast majority
of babies don't have any apparent problems from this.  How long is
"delayed"?  Neither God nor evolution (however you think humans got to their
modern form) planned for someone to cut the umbilical cord within a specific
length of time after the birth.

Kathy Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77845
co-editor of "Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives"
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html