Two days ago The baby of a 16-year-old girl who gave birth at home passed away, without medical assistance of any kind, and whose parents did not know I was pregnant. The reasons why it happened do not appear in some media, but in others, which comment that the baby died because nobody cut the umbilical cord.
In Babies and more We have commented on several occasions how advisable it is, precisely, to make a late cut of the umbilical cord, so that we have thought that it was necessary and timely to assess the veracity of such information. That a baby dies shortly after birth is something that can happen but, Why not cut the umbilical cord?
What is known about it?
As ABC explains, the 16-year-old girl gave birth in her family home in Pilar de la Horadada, in Alicante, without receiving the assistance of any health professional.
The parents of the girl, natives of Estonia, told the police to explain that they had found the baby without life, the result of a pregnancy that they said they did not know. However, they also explained that the baby was born three days before his death, so the Civil Guard moved to the family's home to start an investigation of everything that happened.
That same night was carried out the removal of the body and the transfer of the child to a hospital for a medical examination.
For now, no more is known about the case or, obviously, the reasons for the baby's death.
No one cut the baby's cord
Looking for more information about this event, we find that in Diario Información they add this detail to the news, a fact that is used as the cause of the baby's death when explaining what happened:
A baby of only three days died yesterday in a home in Pilar de la Horadada and, as this newspaper has been able to know, because the umbilical cord was not cut at the time of his birth, last Thursday.
Also OK Diario considers that it is valid information that must be added to the news, and tells us the same:
Specifically, what has taken place has been the death of the baby of a minor at birth, without assistance and because the umbilical cord was not cut (...) The newborn was born by his mother, but has not managed to get ahead and has ended up dying, as it follows, because the cord was not cut in due time.
Why is it unlikely that was the cause?
Unlikely, if not impossible. First because the baby was born three days ago. In three days there are many possible causes for a baby to die (It is not known at what time he died), so that it could have happened so much at birth, as it could have happened hours later or even after one, two or three days.
Second, because if nobody cuts the cord, what happens is precisely what is recommended to happen: that the baby receives a superior blood supply from the mother, in those minutes when she has already been born and the cord continues to beat. This is something that the WHO recommends for a few years, which says that it is better that the cord is not cut early (before the first 60 seconds), it is something that the Ministry of Health of Spain recommends when saying that "It is convenient to clamp the cord from the second minute or after the cessation of the umbilical cord beat", and it is something that Cochrane recommends when reviewing the studies carried out in this regard when it concludes the following:
A more liberal approach to delay umbilical cord clamping in healthy term newborns seems to be justified, in particular, when considering growing evidence that late umbilical cord clamping increases early hemoglobin concentrations and iron stores in The newborns. Late clamping of the umbilical cord appears to have beneficial effects whenever treatment for jaundice that requires phototherapy is available.
That is, although a few years ago it was thought that it was very dangerous not to cut the umbilical cord right away, it has been seen that not only is it not dangerous, but that It is good for the health of the newborn baby.
What if after stopping beating they didn't cut it?
They say that nobody cut the cord, so we could understand that in the three days of life nobody separated the placenta from the baby. Although there are also those who consider this to be a danger, there is no reason to think that it is the cause because there is no communication between the placenta and the baby: there is no heartbeat and the cord and placenta begin to mummify little by little, in a process that culminates at the moment when the cord is finally detached from the baby.
In fact, there are mothers who already do so by personal decision, not to separate the baby from its placenta until it separates in a timely manner: it is what we know as childbirth lotus.
Waiting for the final reason
So, two days after the baby's death, and taking the opportunity to send our condolences to the family and the mother, we can only wait to know the real reason for the death, in an event that has little data, and relatively suspicious or contradictory: the child lived with her parents who did not find out she was pregnant, gave birth three days before and called to find the baby without life. Knowing what happened in those three days seems the easiest way to understand why he died (data that must also be confirmed by the autopsy of the newborn).
We may never know it (it is not something that perhaps should transcend because it is up to the authorities and the family), but at least we can intuit that the cut of the cord was not the reason, as some means explain; that today the information runs very fast and there is already some pregnant woman worried after reading the news because she had decided to wait for the cord to stop beating after childbirth in what is an action whose benefits are observed even at 4 years of age.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | Delaying the umbilical cord cut may reduce the risk of anemia in babies, Delaying the cord cut by two minutes favors the baby in the first days of life, The umbilical cord in the newborn: everything you need to know
