Early versus late cord clamping: effects on peripheral blood flow and cardiac function in term infants.

BACKGROUND: In the debate on the best cord clamping time in newborn infants, we hypothesized that late cord clamping enables an increased volemia due to blood transfer to the newborn from the placenta. AIM: To assess whether clamping time can affect limb perfusion and heart hemodynamics in a group of 22 healthy term newborn infants. STUDY DESIGN: A case-control study. SUBJECTS: Eleven early-clamped (at 30 s) vaginally-delivered newborn infants were compared with eleven late-clamped (at 4 min) newborns. OUTCOME MEASURES: The two groups were studied using near-infrared spectroscopy and M-mode echocardiography. RESULTS: Late cord clamping coincided with a higher hematocrit (median 62% versus 54%) and hemoglobin concentration (median 17.2 versus 15 g/dL), whilst there were no changes in bilirubin level. Echocardiography showed a larger end-diastolic left ventricle diameter (1.7 cm median value versus 1.5) coupled with unvaried shortening and ejection fraction values. There were no changes in calf blood flow, oxygen delivery, oxygen consumption or fractional oxygen extraction calculated from the NIRS measurements, or in foot perfusion index. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that late cord clamping coincides with an increased placental transfusion, expressed by higher hematocrit and hemoglobin values, and larger left ventricle diameter at the end of the diastole, with no changes in peripheral perfusion or oxygen metabolism.