Hello everyone, Dr. Boyd, welcome back. Apparently, we're talking about umbilical cord care. Now, as I mentioned earlier, your baby was connected to your placenta through the umbilical cord. At the time of the delivery process, the baby was separated from this and it leaves an umbilical stump. That's approximately this long, and it will have clamps on it. That will stay on that until the baby's umbilical cord dries up and falls off.

Now you can plan on this process where you have to take care of the umbilical cord to last approximately five to 10 days with an average of seven or eight days. It is minimal, minimal work, but it has to be taken care of in a deliberate manner on a daily basis. Obviously, your baby is going to have a diaper and when you pull the diaper up, you don't want to tear the umbilical Quarter push it that could cause it to to start bleeding. Again, it's a small risk, you're going to want to keep the umbilical cord dry. You're not going to submerge your baby in bathwater until the umbilical cord falls off. So that means when the baby is bathed, under no circumstances should that umbilical cord be submerged.

After the umbilical cord becomes drier and drier and drier, it will eventually fall off and usually this is around the seventh or eighth day. The risk for umbilical cord infection is minimal to zero. That really the greatest risk is to pull the umbilical cord enough that it could cause bleeding but again, this is a small risk