Cardiac and Cerebral Hemodynamics With Umbilical Cord Milking Compared With Early Cord Clamping

Rationale: Caregivers and researchers raised theoretical concerns that the UCM technique may deliver blood rapidly toward a non-vigorous newborn predisposing them to higher rates of brain injury or dislodging cellular debris into the brain. However, of the 13 studies on term infants comparing UCM to ECC, none have reported adverse outcomes. Even in more fragile preterm infants, no harm has been reported. All demonstrated improvements similar to DCC with increased red cell mass (measured by hematocrit or hemoglobin) improved blood pressure, increased pulmonary blood flow and improved ferritin at 6 weeks to 6 months of age with UCM. Nevertheless, careful assessment of safety is essential. Immediate physiological measurements on a subset (n=200) of infants of the two sub-study sites where the use of NIRS is standard of care, University of Alberta and SMBHWN, to establish the safety and efficacy of UCM. This aim will further test our hypotheses that infants in the UCM group will have improved early cardiac and cerebral hemodynamics within the first 10 minutes.

The Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a technology that allows non-invasive continuous real-time measurement of the regional tissue oxygen saturation (StO2) of organs such as the brain. There are well-established reference cerebral StO2 values for uncomplicated term and preterm deliveries; however, there are no completed RCTs using NIRS in the delivery room. Our group is currently leading the first multicenter trial (1R01HD088646-01A1) comparing DCC and UCM measuring NIRS at birth in premature infants. If cerebral oxygenation is improved, it will provide one plausible explanation for the long-term benefits expected with UCM. While published data exists on cerebral oxygenation directly comparing UCM with DCC, some studies demonstrated increases in cerebral oxygenation at 4 hours of age with DCC, and a decrease in cerebral oxygenation at birth with DCC compared to immediate cord clamping. To our knowledge, no studies using cerebral oxygenation in non-vigorous term/near-term infants have ever been performed. This sub-study (n=200) will yield the largest available sample of specific measurements of cerebral oximetry in non-vigorous term newborns.

Substudy Sites: Three sites experienced with NIRS (University of Alberta, Sharp Grossmont Hospital and SMBHWN) will obtain and report the physiological changes with UCM and ECC at 10 minutes of life. Data from the non-invasive monitoring devices are recorded using a continuous real-time data acquisition system that provides a second-by-second record of the resuscitation that is also time-linked to the video recordings. Both sites have 24/7 research team coverage that attend all high-risk deliveries. The research team will ensure accurate sensor placement and data collection. These two exceptional settings will allow us to collect significant data regarding resuscitation outcomes linked to cerebral oxygenation.

Protocol for NIRS Sub-Study: At the two sub-study sites, the use of NIRS is standard of care.

As part of the NIRS sub-study, sites will collect physiological and resuscitation data from birth (mean airway pressure, fractional oxygen) in addition to cerebral oxygenation. Once the newborn is delivered, receives the intervention (UCM or ECC), and is stabilized during resuscitation, a NIRS sensor (Fore-Sight, CAS Medical, Branford, CT) will be placed on the right forehead within 10 minutes of the newborn being placed on the warmer. While arterial saturation and heart rate data will be available to the clinical team, data from NIRS will be blinded. Data on all study infants will be recorded for the first 10 minutes in the delivery room at the two sites. Heart rate, oxygen saturations, and cerebral oxygenation will be downloaded as per both site's practice for neonatal resuscitation.