Clinical pearl: Use the cord clamp to bring babies back at 3-5 days

In order to assure that every newborn is brought back to follow-up clinic between 3-5 days of age as recommended by the AAP, many years ago we instituted a policy in our hospital (The University of Chicago Hospitals) that all newborns would be discharged with the cord clamp remaining in place. When the infant completed the follow-up visit, we held a little ceremony to celebrate the removal of the cord clamp. Over a period of many years, we consistently had better than 90% returns to the early follow-up clinic. – Larry Gartner, Illinois and California

At ABM’s 2010 Intenational Meeting, members from around the world submitted their breastfeeding clinical pearls and mythbusters. We’ll be sharing the Top Ten winners on the blog this week. Clinical pearls reflect the opinions of individual ABM members, not the organization as a whole.