Umbilical cord clamping in preterm infants.

Umbilical cord clamping in preterm infantsEDITOR,-The possibility that late clamping of the umbilical cord may lead to a reduction in respiratory distress syndrome is not a particularly new finding, but S Kinmond and colleagues offer a more scientific approach in evaluating this phenomenon.'However, they give little information about the obstetric features of their cases, which might be quite important since matching is essential with such small numbersfor example, were the babies predominantly born during preterm labour or were they delivered electively for some obstetric complication?Also not clear is whether any of the mothers received steroids to accelerate fetal maturity before delivery.Although these matters may not be particularly important as far as the haematological features are concerned, they certainly are with respect to ventilation.I believe that more information on them would be helpful in the interpretation of the paper.