Alternative to Cord Blood Banking
- Thread starter thanka2
- Start date
shwetakhanna
Registered User
Thanks for sharing... am curious to know if the doctors / midwives here would delay cord clamping if it is there in the birth plan, or will they continue as usual......
Well, we had delayed cord clamping in our birth plan and it was discussed with the doctors and they just went on and cut the cord even though we were telling them at the time to wait. That's our experience. I think your best chances of delayed cord clamping come with home birth or at least a birthing center--neither exist in Hong Kong.
howardcoombs
Registered User
I've heard so many stories about birth plans in Hong Kong I wonder what is the %age of doctors who actually follow them.
For our first birth we had one of the top 5 (famous/infamous) doctors in Hong Kong : Sally Ferguson.
(We never used her again and would never recommend her for too many reasons, but plenty are happy with her that she is still in top 5)
We dutifully made a plan, discussed it with her and made sure she knew our wishes along with the fact that I would want to cut the cord when the time came.
Time came, she looked and snipped and moved on. When we called her on this, her response was "she forgot".
With all the doctors not following previously discussed plans makes me wonder what the point of these plans are and how many doctors really pay any attention to them.
For our first birth we had one of the top 5 (famous/infamous) doctors in Hong Kong : Sally Ferguson.
(We never used her again and would never recommend her for too many reasons, but plenty are happy with her that she is still in top 5)
We dutifully made a plan, discussed it with her and made sure she knew our wishes along with the fact that I would want to cut the cord when the time came.
Time came, she looked and snipped and moved on. When we called her on this, her response was "she forgot".
With all the doctors not following previously discussed plans makes me wonder what the point of these plans are and how many doctors really pay any attention to them.
We didn't have a private doctor--just gave birth in the public hospital but they followed the other parts of our birth plan. I think with the delayed cord clamping/cutting the nurses and doctors here have no idea about this practice and they are so used to just "following protocol." Actually, with us they played the "the baby is in danger" card which was actually totally a lie because our daughter was pink, crying loudly and completely fine. They just didn't know how to really cope because I had an "unorthodox" (by their standards) labor and birth and my daughter was born when I was in a standing position (which was a wonderful experience and if anything as beneficial for her as well--I highly recommend it). Because this wasn't something they were prepared for (or had likely ever seen) they treated it like an "emergency case." But, with the cord clamping/cutting, they were the ones wielding the scissors/scalpel so it was literally one of the only parts of the birth that we couldn't really have full control over--the other parts only involved my body which fell fully within my jurisdiction so we just told them what we would and would not be doing. Funny thing is that my husband actually caught my daughter when she came out because, well, no one else was around to do it. I kinda helped. Team effort--go team!
In Hong Kong, especially the public setting, getting them to delay cutting the chord seems a near-impossible task. But with regard to the article above, I was reading the comments and another midwife contested the assertion that it is impossible to wait till the chord stops pulsing and then collect the chord blood.
Impossible? What about Lotus Birth? I just watched a YouTube video that is a vlog of a quite "granola" couple that lives in South America. They just gave birth to their first daughter via unassisted childbirth and the baby and placenta stayed attached until the placenta just separated naturally. They preserved the placenta with salt, essential oils and spices to keep it from rotting and the cord was completely devoid of blood when it finally just shriveled up and naturally fell off.
I wonder why she would say it was "impossible"--unless the focus is collecting cord blood. At best cord blood banking is recommended in cases where people have a known genetic issue where it will be used--otherwise it's not really indicated.
From what I understood, in the article you linked to, the focus was on collected cord blood and the midwife's assertion was that to get enough cord blood one must cut the cord immediately (which is the reason she does not recommend cord blood collection anymore). However, another midwife in the comments pointed out that one can wait at least until the cord has stopped pulsing to cut and still get enough cord blood with some effort. So it may be possible to have both - a delayed cutting of cord (though not as delayed as waiting for the placenta to separate naturally) as well as cord blood collection.
Now, whether there are any merits to collecting cord blood itself is another issue.
Now, whether there are any merits to collecting cord blood itself is another issue.
Sorry, charade, I misunderstood what you were saying, I think. Yes, it may be impossible to get cord blood out after waiting so long but I think the benefits of letting your baby get as much blood as possible from the cord and placenta outweighs that possibility. Sorry for the confusion. 
My husband and I actually researched this in-depth when we were preparing for my daughter's birth. There is a lecture we watched on the topic and we looked at the research and the data displayed in charts shows that the baby gets the most benefit from an uncut cord within the first three minutes--after that it drops off significantly so if you want to do both, waiting about three minutes will give you a lot of the benefits and if you want to collect cord blood samples you can still go ahead and do that. My computer has completely crashed since I collected that data and all the info. is on another external hard-drive, otherwise I would link the video and the PDF right here. There has actually been research that has gone into this. Shame that HK docs don't have a clue.
I gave birth in a public hospital here in September. I asked for delayed cord clamping. They did not cut the cord. After about five minutes the midwife showed me the cord, it was white and had stopped pulsating. My husband then cut it.
eta. The midwives we had at my most recent birth were wonderful. They followed our preferences in the birth plan and we had a great experience.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using GeoClicks Mobile
eta. The midwives we had at my most recent birth were wonderful. They followed our preferences in the birth plan and we had a great experience.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using GeoClicks Mobile
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That's great to hear. Not the case in my public hospital birth. Just luck of the draw.
I think that length of labor also has a significant role in one's treatment in labor. If you enter the hospital nearly ready to push there isn't time for them to tamper with you as much--this is a huge advantage. This is also one of the reasons why doulas are hired in HK to help women stay at home longer in a bid to have a lesser chance of being pressured for interventions in the hospital. But, it is remarkable that they delayed cord clamping because when we explained our wishes in our birth plan to the staff on duty at the public hospital when I was in labor they thought we were nuts to request something like that and asked for a defense of our wishes--which they didn't get because....well...it was already explained in the birth plan and I was in active labor with my husband helping me so we didn't have time to have a debate with them. In the end, they ignored our wishes and did what they wanted.
That's the thing with the public hospital....just total luck of the draw...no standard procedure across the board and greatly depends on which facility you're at, what time you're there and who is on shift at that time and what their attitude happens to be. Lucky Koan...they even let the father cut the cord! Simply remarkable! Yay for those midwives--hope you took names and sent a thank you card
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