Impact of early versus delayed cord clamping on mean hemoglobin level in term neonates

Objective: objective of this study was to assess the impact of early versus delayed cord clamping on mean hemoglobin level in term neonates. study design: randomized controlled trial. place and duration of study: department of pediatric medicine,sir ganga ram hospital,lahore during 6 months period from 1-10-2013 to 31-03-2014. subjects and method: a total of 200 newborns (100 cases in each group) were included in this study. in group-a,(100 cases) early cord clamping was done while in group-b,(100 cases) delayed cord clamping was performed and after 48 hours,blood was drawn from babies to measure hemoglobin level in both groups. results: nearly two third of mothers of newborns were between 26-30 years of age in both groups. mean maternal age was 26.46 ± 2.74 and 26.47 ± 2.18 years in group-a and b,respectively. mean gestational age was 37.55 ± 0.77 in group-a and 37.58 ± 0.72 weeks in group-b. in group-a 60 (60.0%),and in group-b neonates (59.0%) were male while 40 (40.0%) in group-a and 41 neonates (41.0%) in group-b were female. mean hemoglobin level in group-a was 12.85 ± 1.78 mg/dl and in group-b it was 18.26 ± 2.13 mg/dl with p value <0.001. conclusion: levels of mean hemoglobin was found to be significantly increased at 48 hours in term neonates whose cords were clamped at 3 minutes after birth. © 2016,pakistan pediatric journal. all rights reserved.