CORD CLAMPING/CUTTING

One of the most important factors for a healthy third stage is having good levels of oxytocin, the hormone of love. Oxytocin has a powerful effecton a birthing mother's uterus, initiating the contractions of labour and causing ongoing contractions after birth. These contractions are necessary to stop bleeding and to encourage the baby's placenta to separate easily. Oxytocin levels will naturally be very high after an undisturbed birth, but levels will be affected if the labouring woman has felt disturbed, unsafe or lacking in privacy.2

Oxytocin is also a hormone of bonding- levels are increased after birth when mother and baby are skin-to-skin and eye-to-eye. Oxytocin also causes dilation of blood vessels on the new mother's chest which makes a natural warming mechanism for the baby3 that is more efficient that wrapping (or an incubator)3 4 and that gives perfect skin-to-skin conditions for mother and baby to fall in love, as Mother Nature intends.

For oxytocin to work perfectly during third stage, the new mother needs to feel private, safe and undisturbed at this time. As Michel Odent suggests, she should have nothing to do but touch and gaze at her new baby.5 A warm atmosphere is also crucial to enhance oxytocin release. If the new mother is fearful, cold or disturbed, her oxytocin levels can be affected which can increase her risk of bleeding. We should consider this time, after the birth, in the same light as love-making (when we also make peak levels of oxytocin, the hormone of love) and offer the new mother and baby the same privacy and respect.

With this in mind, I do not recommend clamping or cutting the cord, at least until the baby's placenta is delivered and possibly for an hour after birth. Not only does this activity disturb the sacredness of this time, but it can also seriously affect the well-being of mother and baby.

For example, early clamping (within 30 seconds ofbirth) can deprive the baby of around 100 ml of blood, and may compromise the function of newborn organs and brain.6 This blood, known as the placental transfusion, is passed through the cord from the placenta to the baby with each uterine contraction in third stage, and is designed to fill all the organs that the baby has not used in the womb- the lungs, kidney, gut, liver and skin. Early-clamped babies also lose the iron contained in the placental transfusion -- which is equivalent to the iron in 100 litres of breastmilk -- and are more likely to be anemic at 3 months.7 Early clamping is necessary for cord blood collection, which is one reason I do not recommend this.

Clamping the cord may also be harmful for the mother, because if the blood (placental transfusion) hasn't been passed to the baby, it will remain in the placenta, making it bulkier. This makes the placenta harder to deliver and can also compromise the mother's uterus, which cannot contract as efficiently with a bulky placenta inside. Clamping the cord was obviously never practiced by our ancestors, nor by our mammalian cousins and is, I believe, a significant birth intervention.
http://www.mothering.com/sections/experts/buckley-archive3.html#cutcord

early vs. late cord clamping
http://www.mothering.com/sections/experts/odent-archive.html#cord-clamping

umbilical cord issues
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/cordIssues.html