FIGO good practice recommendations on delayed umbilical cord clamping

Abstract

Delayed cord clamping in the first minute in preterm infants born before 34 weeks of gestation improves neonatal hematologic measures and may reduce mortality without increasing any other morbidity. In term-born babies, it also seems to improve both the short- and long-term outcomes and shows favorable scores in fine motor and social domains. However, there is insufficient evidence to show what duration of delay is best. The current evidence supports not clamping the cord before 30 seconds for preterm births. Future trials could compare different lengths of delay. Until then, a period of 30 seconds to 3 minutes seems justified for term-born babies.

Keywords: delayed cord clamping; neonatal outcomes; preterm delivery; term delivery.

Conflict of interest statement

Ana Bianchi reports no conflicts of interest. Ben W. Mol reports an investigator grant from NHMRC; consultancy for ObsEva; and research funding from Guerbet, Ferring, and Merck KGaA. Bo Jacobbson reports research grants from Swedish Research Council, Norwegian Research Council, March of Dimes, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the US National Institute of Health; clinical diagnostic trials on NIPT with Ariosa (completed), Natera (ongoing), Vanadis (completed), and Hologic (ongoing) with expenditures reimbursed per patient; clinical probiotic studies with product provided by FukoPharma (ongoing, no funding), and BioGaia (ongoing; also provided a research grant for the specific study); collaboration in IMPACT study where Roche, Perkin Elmer, and Thermo Fisher provided reagents to PLGF analyses; coordination of scientific conferences and meetings with commercial partners such as NNFM 2015, ESPBC 2016, and a Nordic educational meeting about NIPT and pre‐eclampsia screening. Bo Jacobbson is also Chair of the FIGO Working Group for Preterm Birth and the European Association of Perinatal Medicine special interest group on preterm delivery; steering group member of Genomic Medicine Sweden; chairs the Genomic Medicine Sweden complex diseases group; and is Swedish representative in the Nordic Society of Precision Medicine.

© 2021 The Authors. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.