The Benefits Of Delayed Cord Clamping For Your Baby's Iron Stores

During the third trimester your baby is actively drawing iron from your diet and body stores to use for the first six months of his or her life. By the time your baby is born, it will have created iron stores (called ferritin) of around 60mg. These iron stores will support your newborn’s healthy brain development and the development of lean tissue. 

If you found it difficult to maintain an adequate intake of iron-rich foods throughout your pregnancy, it's possible you may become iron deficient during the third or fourth trimester. For peace of mind, you may wish to get a blood test to check your iron levels.

To boost your baby’s storage of iron, it's recommended to delay clamping of the cord at your baby’s birth until after the umbilical cord has stopped pulsing.

It's estimated that early clamping deprives the baby of between 54ml to 160ml of blood, which represents up to half of a baby’s total blood volume at birth. Furthermore, the baby whose cord is clamped early also loses the iron contained within that blood — early cord clamping has been linked to an increased risk of anaemia in infancy. 

Over recent years, a multitude of studies have confirmed the benefits of delayed cord clamping and this has lead to changes in medical opinions and recommendations to support delayed cord clamping.

For further reading on this topic, refer to this article by Dr Sarah Buckley, GP-Obstetrics and Family Planning.