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

[8hyenas]

I am, as an adult who will never have children, still very bitter that I have no stored umbilical stems cells, and that I was an induced C-section.


(Ridiculous. Not actually bitter. Bitter in the same way I am about how I think one of my toes is more crumpled than the other and is that a genetic defect from my mother refusing to stop drinking Dr. Pepper?)

This is just to say, that some how, opinions on umbilical cords can be formed even by people (me) who assiduously avoid all mentions of birth, pregnancy, and the biological processes of reproduction.

[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)

[oloriel]

IIRC, they used to wait longer in the olden days (before hospital births became the standard) - and by longer, I mean until the placenta was out so it no longer served much of a purpose - so your uneasy sensation might be correct?
I suspect it's one of those cases of "reality is unrealistic": if they aren't shown cutting the cord fairly early, people will think the film-makers have forgotten that this needs to be done; even if they wait the period-appropriate time and then clearly show the cutting of the cord, people will either think that they don't know how birthing works, or that they're forcing a modern discourse on historical characters.
Or, of course, they just didn't do the research, and simply assumed that this modern day norms were always the norm, including lying down in bed to do the birthing - or cutting the umbilical cord a couple of seconds after birth...

[havocthecat]

Mostly I'm reminded of why I stopped reading parenting advice on the internet. That's a rabbit hole of anxiety that I didn't want to go down then and I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to go down even now that my child is a teenager.

[topaz_eyes]

Delaying clamping can increase a newborn's blood volume by up to 30% and red blood cells by up to 60%. So it's great for reducing the risk of anemia and iron deficiency. Also, cord blood is a rich source of stem cells, including immune cells.

Considering a newborn only has about 250 mL blood total in its system, an extra 100 mL would make a big difference...

[conuly]

According to the link I shared, it was more delayed up until the 1950s when more women started giving birth in the hospital. We're now well into the 1960s so... idk.

[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.

[conuly]

Sensible. Pretty soon your child will be an adult and sooner or later might have kids of their own and you don't want all that to rear its ugly head again for you.

[conuly]

Which is why people with an opinion mostly have that opinion.

[crystalpyramid]

"Lotus birth" was a new one to me. I'm glad our doula introduced us to delayed cord clamping. I'm not sure how long our birth center actually waited, though, mostly because my memories of that whole day are fogged.

[ethelmay]

We had planned to do both delayed clamping/cutting and donating umbilical blood cells for research when my son was born, and everyone forgot about all that in the event. Still not real happy about that, but mostly because there was a lot of other quite unnecessary trauma involved (my son was fine, thankfully).

[conuly]

I'm glad your son was fine, and hope he remains that way.

[conuly]

That happens. So long as you have the baby, who cares if you clearly remember the event?