Thermal care for preterm infants in the delivery room has not been compromised since the routine adoption of delayed cord clamping in our unit

It was with great interest that we read the work of Dunne et al describing higher rates of admission hypothermia in preterm infants following the introduction of delayed cord clamping (DCC) (6% to 54%).1 We share their concerns given the association between admission hypothermia and increased mortality.2 The 2021 National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) data highlighted our tertiary, medical neonatal intensive care unit as a negative outlier—only 12.1% of preterm infants received DCC compared with the national average of 43.0%. A quality improvement project (QIP) followed, led by a multidisciplinary team (MDT) consisting of neonatal, obstetric, anaesthetic and midwifery staff. Exploration of barriers and change ideas informed the development of a new guideline, education sessions and poster resources to embed DCC into routine practice. Subsequently, we demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in DCC rates for infants <34 weeks’ gestation from 32.4% to 78.6% (p<0.01,
Source: Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition - Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Tags: PostScript Source Type: research