Delayed & Optimal
Cord Clamping
When you choose Cells4Life
Delayed & Optimal Cord Clamping
Compatible with cord blood banking – when you choose Cells4Life
With Cells4Life, cord blood, cord tissue, amnion and placenta banking are fully compatible with delayed cord clamping and optimal cord clamping.
Cord tissue, amnion and placenta banking are always 100% compatible with delayed and optimal cord clamping and the clamping process has no impact on their availability.
However, delayed cord clamping and particularly optimal cord clamping can both have an impact on the amount of blood available for cord blood collection. A delay of just 1 to 2 minutes is unlikely to have much of an effect, but with optimal cord clamping, although there is almost always some blood remaining in the placental vessels, cord blood samples may be too small for processing or contain too few cells to be usable for many therapies.
Upgrading to our CellsPlus service, powered by TotiCyte, can help mitigate the impact of postponing clamping, as it retains up top 2.2X more stem cells post thaw than our industry standard, next best service Cells.*
Clinical guidelines for stem cell transplants are often based on cell count. Therefore, the goal of CellsPlus is simple: to recover as many viable cells as we can.
2.2x more stem cells when you choose CellsPlus
Our exclusive CellsPlus service, powered by our TotiCyte cord blood processing technology, preserves up to 2.2 times more stem cells at the point of treatment than Cells, our standard processing system.*
What are delayed cord clamping and optimal cord clamping?
Delayed cord clamping is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and increasing awareness means that more and more parents are turning to delayed or optimal cord clamping to give their baby the best possible start to life. Delayed cord clamping is where the umbilical cord is not clamped for one to two minutes and optimal cord clamping is where clamping is delayed for as long as it takes for the cord to stop pulsating and turn white.
Why choose optimal or delayed cord clamping?
Immediate cord clamping has been shown to reduce baby’s blood supply by up to 34% and their red blood cells by up to 50%.[1][2][3] Literature indicates that postponing clamping for at least 30 seconds reduces mortality in full and, particularly pre-term babies, by 32%.
Despite this, 40% of UK births use immediate cord clamping and many babies still miss out on vital extra blood.
Are optimal or delayed cord clamping compatible with cord blood banking?
Delayed clamping for more than two minutes, and especially optimal cord clamping usually mean that there is less blood in the umbilical cord for collection. Even if blood remains, it may have clotted.
In the case of optimal cord clamping, it is often only possible to collect as little as 20 millilitres of blood residual in the placenta.
The CellsPlus Difference
Our CellsPlus service is the most popular processing system in the UK. It helps give you the freedom to choose to both protect your child at birth with delayed or optimal cord clamping and to help prepare for the future by saving their cord blood stem cells. CellsPlus is based on TotiCyte, our patented processing technology. CellsPlus can be successfully applied to as little as 15ml of cord blood, and delivers up to 2.2X more stem cells than Cells, our standard cord blood processing system.[5]
Clinical guidelines for stem cell therapy are often based on cell count; choosing optimal cord clamping makes it even more important to maximise the number of cells collected from the available sample.
Birth is a biological process, so there are never any guarantees, but choosing CellsPlus helps maximise the potential of your baby’s sample, ensuring you are as prepared as possible for future developments in medicine.
Cord tissue banking
Umbilical cord tissue, amnion and placenta stem cell collection is 100% compatible with every clamping choice. For cord tissue, all that is required is an undamaged section of the umbilical cord itself, which is cut and placed into saline after birth. For amnion and placenta the placenta is simply placed in a biohazard bag and shipped back to us. Delayed and optimal cord clamping have no impact on these procedures, so even in the unlikely event that we don’t collect enough blood, it is pretty much always possible to store cord tissue, and you will only have to pay for this element of the service. Umbilical cord tissue stem cells may be even more powerful than cord blood for regenerative therapies, so cord tissue collection is by no means a second best.
Learn more about the uses of umbilical cord tissue.
Supported by midwives
MaMa Conference
“TotiCyte has transformed stem cell retention both during the processing procedure and in cryopreservation… This could play an important part in promoting optimal cord clamping, providing all of the significant benefits for babies while still meeting the needs of parents who do choose to bank or donate their babies’ stem cells.”
Cass McNamara, midwife and founder of the MaMa Conference
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*based on our peer reviewed publication showing that TotiCyte delivers up to 2.2 times more haematopoietic stem cells at the point of use than our next best system, AXP.
References
[1] McDonald S. Physiology and management of the third stage of labour. In: Fraser D, Cooper M editor(s). Myles Textbook for Midwives. 14th Edition. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2003.
[2] Mercer JS. Current best evidence: a review of the literature on umbilical cord clamping. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health 2001;46(6):402‐14.
[3] Mercer JS. Current best evidence: a review of the literature on umbilical cord clamping. In: Wickham S editor(s). Midwifery: Best Practice. Vol. 4, Edinburgh: Elsevier, 2006:114‐29.
[4] Palethorpe RJ, Farrar D, Duley L. Alternative positions for the baby at birth before clamping the umbilical cord. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 10. [DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007555.pub2]
Does Delayed Umbilical Cord Clamping Impact Family Banked Cord Blood? Parents Guide to Cord Blood Banking
