Newborns need to start breathing before umbilical cord can be cut – Midwife

Senior Midwifery Officer at the Tema Health Centre, Ruby Naa Ago Larbi Mensah Ansah-Tagoe has explained that newborn babies are stimulated to breathe before the umbilical cord is cut.

Educating Newborn mothers on how to handle the umbilical cord of babies with Valerie N. Danso on the GTV Breakfast Show, the Midwife said that once a woman misses her period, the placenta which houses a baby is immediately formed 4 weeks after.

“Immediately you miss your period, is 4 weeks, the placenta has already formed. The heart starts beating from 7 to 8 weeks (SIC). When the placenta forms that is the connection”, she explained.

She further submitted that the umbilical cord is formed within 4 to 8 weeks after the placenta is formed. The cord connects the baby to the mother and it is responsible for transporting nutrients from the mother to the baby.

“Within 4 to 8 weeks, we’re expecting that the umbilical cord should be formed because that is the center, the connection for the baby to grow so if the placenta is not forming, then the baby wouldn’t grow. The cord is the tunnel that all the nutrients need to flow to the baby. When the mother breathes, baby breathes. When a mother drinks water, baby gets enough”, she noted.

Progressing, newborns are given to mothers and stimulated to breathe before the umbilical cord is cut.

“We expect baby to breathe before we cut the cord. We have things that we do, we stimulate the baby,…we stimulate the back like that, this, you see the lungs is here and here, the more you stimulate the more pressure is being applied to the lungs so that baby can start breathing”, she educated.