Two studies taken out in Pakistan and Bangladesh have suggested that umbilical cord infection and infant mortality rate can be reduced if doctors clean the umbilical cord during and after baby’s birth.

Both the researches that were published in the journal Lancet have revealed that cleaning of umbilical cord declines cord infection, which in medical terminology is known as omphalitis. The method is said to be effective for developing countries which have scarcity of resources.

One of the two study leaders, Professor Zulfiqar A Bhutta from the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, said that they used chlorhexidine (CHX) solution to clean umbilical cords of babies during and after delivery.

They took out their research in rural parts of Sindh and cleaned umbilical cords of more than 9,700 infants, who were born there and in nearby places. They continued the cord cleaning with the solution for the next 14 days of delivery. It got revealed that cord infection rate got reduced by 42% and mortality rate gone down by 38%.

In the second research, Shams El Arifeen and team from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh, adopted a different route to assess the efficacy of antiseptic. They conducted the study in Sylhet, Bangladesh where they used many ways to reduce infection and mortality rate.

In the first method, they applied CHX solution at one time on the time of birth. In the second method, they continued to apply the solution for complete one week after child’s birth. Comparison of the two revealed that single application is more beneficial than multiple applications.

The main hitch to use this trick would be that people living in remote regions are not too open for such treatments. However, the government could play a crucial role in implementing the application in remote areas.