Been catching up on Call the Midwife.

[conuly]

You know, back when the nieces were itsy bitsy I spent a lot of time at The Babywearer Forums, and then when they were in middle school I spent a lot of time at the homeschool forum, two rather crunchy places.

And something that comes up in rather crunchy places where many people have young children and are expecting another is... well, everything, but the relevant thing here is the umbilical cord, namely, when to clamp it. You may have never given this much thought in your life, and probably don't have an opinion, but if you did have an opinion it would likely be "delayed clamping". Something about anemia? If you have no opinion you'll happily let the hospital decide, of course, and the very use of the term "delayed" here suggests that they probably won't do that.

Consequently, after all the discussion of this I read, every time I see a Call the Midwife birth I'm left with the uneasy sensation that they cut the cord really early... even though, of course, they're well within modern day hospital norms and (I assume) the period-appropriate norms as well.

Comments

[malada]

Remember that Call the Midwife is a television show and there may be time constraints and narrative flow to think about. Having the characters wait the extra 30 seconds to several minutes hanging around not really doing anything can throw off the narrative flow of the program. However, it would be a great time to insert more dialog if needed.

My nurse and midwife textbook is from the mid 1980s so it's not a good guide to the period shown in the program.

-m

(edited for typos)

[conuly]

They usually do spend what looks like an extra 30 seconds after the birth chatting on screen so they could definitely just wait until the end of that period.