New and underutilized uses of umbilical cord blood in neonatal care.

BACKGROUND: In an era increasingly focused on quality improvement and cost containment, more emphasis is being placed on wiser utilization of medical care resources. One underutilized resource in early neonatal care is umbilical cord blood.

FINDINGS: Umbilical cord blood can be utilized for admission laboratory studies in neonates thereby avoiding a significant phlebotomy event in the first minutes to hours of life. Additionally, umbilical cord blood can also be safely "transfused" into the neonate via delayed cord clamping or milking of the umbilical cord. This has been demonstrated to be particularly beneficial in premature infants by decreasing the rate of intraventricular hemorrhage. Delayed cord clamping has been formally endorsed by a number of medical societies, however it has not yet been universally adopted by obstetricians and neonatologists.

CONCLUSIONS: Both uses of umbilical cord blood for neonatal admission laboratory testing and delayed cord clamping/milking of the umbilical cord have resulted in decreased transfusion rates as well as other outcomes reviewed herein.