Cut The Cord Later

Everybody wants their kid to be as smart as possible, but what if there was a way to boost your kid's intelligence right from birth? Researchers from the University of Sweden looked at a group of 263 children. Among those kids, 141 had been given about three minutes before their umbilical cord was cut or clamped after they were born.

Researchers ran neurological tests on the kids when they turned four years old. They note in their report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that usually delaying cord cutting did not make much of a difference in the overall neurodevelopment and behavior of the participants. However, the findings did show that later cord clamping was associated with "higher scores for parent-reported pro-social behavior as well as personal-social and fine-motor development...particularly in boys."

Dr. Tonse Raju of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who was not involved in the study says the findings are significant, suggesting that waiting at the very least causes no harm, but at the very best may help a child overcome an iron deficiency! Now they tell us!