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Throughout the modern era, recommendations about timing of umbilical cord clamping in both term and preterm infants have varied and evolved. Current professional recommendations advocate delayed cord clamping (variably defined) for infants born preterm, provided that immediate resuscitation is not required. Australian researchers evaluated the benefit of this practice in a randomized, controlled trial involving 1566 fetuses born before 30 weeks.
In all, 782 infants were assigned to immediate cord clamping (≤10 seconds) and 784 to delayed clamping (≥60 seconds). The primary outcome of infant death or major morbidity at 36 weeks did not differ between groups (37% in each group). While fewer babies in the delayed clamping group died by 36 weeks…