Noni, I have heard many good things about letting the cord pulsate, but I haven't heard that it can give them jaundice? I have a few articles I will post for you that I got from here just so you can read up on it a bit from different sources.

Delaying cord clamping reduces anemia
Source: Pediatrics 2006; 117: e779-86

Investigating the effects of the timing of cord clamping on neonatal venous hematocrit.

Delaying cord clamping may lower rates of anemia in newborns, results of a randomized controlled trial suggest.

Although the umbilical cord is usually clamped immediately after birth, there is no evidence to support this approach, and it may even deprive the newborn of some benefits, say José Ceriani Cernadas (Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Argentina) and co-workers.

To find out, they assessed the effects of clamping the umbilical cord within the first 15 seconds (group 1), 1 minute (group 2), and 3 minutes (group 3) of birth in a study of 276 neonates born at two obstetrical units in Argentina. The infants were delivered at term without complications.

Delaying cord clamping increased the venous hematocrit value—the relative volume of blood occupied by red blood cells—in the babies at 6 hours of life within the physiologic range (53.5 percent, 57.0 percent, and 59.4 percent in groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Anemia, defined as a venous hematocrit value lower than 45 percent, was significantly less common in groups 2 and 3 than group 1.

Cernadas et al say delaying clamping should be implemented to increase neonatal iron storage at birth.

Iron deficiency in early life has been linked to cognitive impairment, and anemia is one of the most serious childhood conditions, especially in the developing world.
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Trial finds delay in cord clamping protects babies
(as reported in the Courier Mail recently)

A 30 second delay in clamping a premature newborn's umbilical cord protects against bleeding in the brain and infection, groundbreaking new research shows.

The study, which involved 72 babies, could prompt a reassessment of the standard practice of clamping the cord immediately after birth.

Delayed clamping has been shown to increase the volume of blood transferred to the baby from the placenta.

Researchers from the University of Rhode Island, in the US, followed 36 babies assigned to immediate cord clamping and 36 assigned to delayed cord clamping.

All were less than 32 weeks gestation and their prematurity meant they were at increased risk of brain haemorrhage and infection.

In the weeks after birth, 36 percent of the immediate group had suffered bleeding into the brain, compared with 14 per cent of the delayed group.

Nine of the immediate group but none of the delayed group developed infections while in the intensive care.

"It may be that the small amounts of additional blood preterm infants obtain by delaying cord clamping helps to stablise cerebral blood flow and provide additional stem cells to establish adequate immunocompetence" says the report in this month's America Pediatrics journal.


HTH