Timing of Umbilical Cord Removal in Infants: Comparison of Topical Breastfeeding and Dry Care

Abstract

Umbilical cord care is one of the efforts to prevent neonatal infections. The umbilical cord can be an entry point for infection into the baby's body, so proper cord care measures are needed so that the baby avoids infection, one of which is tetanus neonatorum infection. One of the cord
treatments can be done by giving topical breast milk. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of topical breastfeeding on cord release time in newborns. This study is a quantitative study conducted to determine the effect of topical breastfeeding on newborns, with a time series
research method, two group post test design. The sampling technique used random sampling technique, the sample of this study was 40 newborns born in May-July 2022. This research instrument uses an observation sheet, the results of the study found that in the group with topical
breastfeeding 3 days as many as 5 people (33.3%) and 4 days as many as 10 people (66.7%). The time of umbilical cord release with dry care 5 days was 3 people (20%), 6 days was 6 people (40%), 7 days was 4 people (26.7%) and 8 days was 2 people (13.3%). There was a difference between topical breastfeeding and dry care on cord release time with a value of ρ = 0.000 (ρ < 0.05).