This is word-of-mouth from one of my more experienced (and grayer)
colleagues regarding umbilical cord stumps. I'm not sure how it relates to
the discussion, but here goes...  He said that UC's on babies who had
C-sections took longer to fall off than vaginal deliveries. His thought was
that 1) the UC basically rots off and 2) with a CS, the cord was not exposed
to the vaginal flora. No idea if this has any truth in it. I did see baby
today (CS with lots of alcohol to the cord) who was still quite firmly
attached to her stump at one month of age. The cord looked nice and clean.
Hmm...

Mari Douma, DO