PEDIATRICS Vol. 55 No. 6 June 1975, pp. 813
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100 YEARS ON, and STILL NO ANSWER

A. G.S. P.

The reader (researcher) who pursues a subject often discovers that "new" and "original" ideas may have been lying dormant for many years. The questions posed in the past were frequently left unanswered, until the development of more modern and sophisticated techniques. This year (1975) marks the 100th anniversary of the publication by Pierre Budin, in Paris, of an article posing the question, literally translated from the French, "At what moment ought one to practice ligating the umbilical cord?" (Progr. Med. [Paris] 3:765, 1875). He was asking the same question the following year, and obstetricians and pediatricians have been asking that question ever since. The last decade has witnessed a considerable number of investigations relating to the transfer of blood from the placenta to the infant at the time of delivery, much of it carried out at the Karolinski Institute in Stockholm. For the most part, the baby born at term who is appropriate for gestational age seems to be able to compensate for either excess or deprivation of blood (depending upon one's viewpoint). Despite widespread interest in the problem, the question with regard to the low-birthweight infant remains unresolved 100 years later.

Budin was a most inquisitive physician, and wrote on a wide variety of subjects, as evidenced by his book The Nursling published in 1907. One might thus attribute the question posed in 1875 to his fertile mind. However, he was preceded by almost 75 years by Erasmus Darwin who linked placental transfusion to onset of respiration in 1801.




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J. M. Ceriani Cernadas, G. Carroli, L. Pellegrini, L. Otano, M. Ferreira, C. Ricci, O. Casas, D. Giordano, and J. Lardizabal
The Effect of Timing of Cord Clamping on Neonatal Venous Hematocrit Values and Clinical Outcome at Term: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
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[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]