Advantages of delayed ligation of the umbilical cord
			Ballentine's 1947 paper reports investigation of the effects of delaying ligation of the cord on weight gain as a measure of placental transfusion.
			Experimental groups were: 30 infants subjected to cord ligation after being placed onto scales at the time of delivery, 30 infants weighed at time of delivery and again after the cord had stopped pulsating, and 30 infants weighed at delivery and following transfusion from the placenta placed in a rack as high as the length of the cord would allow.
			In the second group, pulsations in the cord continued for seven to thirty minutes (average 21.7 mins).  In the group with delivered placenta above the infant, pulsations continued for 12 to 30 minutes (average 23.8 mins).   Elevation of the placenta did not increase weight gain.
			Blood volume increased from 37 to 187 cc (average 96cc) in the second group, and from 53 to 125 cc (average 87cc) in the group with elevated placenta.
			Ballentine also reported that 55 percent of the blood flowed into the infant from the placenta in the first minute and 84 percent in the first five minutes -- the two time points that Apgar would later chose for evaluating an infant's condition.
			Intravenous ergotrate was used to shorten the third stage of labor, which provided the group with elevated placenta.
		Balentine wrote that 135 cases were studied, with equal numbers of primi- and multiparous women, and only vertex presentations.  Nembutal in small doses was used as premedication.  Inhalation anesthesia was used at time of delivery.  All mothers were given intravenous ergotrat wtih delivery of the anterior shoulder, which was noted to result in prompt delivery of the placenta.  One infant was delivered by cesarean section, and episiotomies were performed in approximately 75 percent of cases.
			Ballentine commented that transfusion as a means of combating shock may be accomplished by postponement of severance of the cord, and added:
				"Such a measure is of desirable therapeutic value for infants manifesting vary degrees of shock as a result of birth trauma following difficult labor or delivery." p726
			Ballentine commented that transfusion as a means of combating shock may be accomplished by postponement of severance of the cord, and added:
			This paper was presented at a meeting of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania, October 8, 1946.  Comments of one discussant, Josiah R. Eisaman Jr, were included in the published article, who offered the opinion that among some obstetricians:
				"There seems to be undue haste in severing the umbilical cord immediately after the second stage of labor...
				...This practice involve many poorly understood changes in neonatal physiology, i.e., closure of the ductus arteriosus and ductus venosus...
					...Not long ago placental blood was recommended for transfusions.  The volume so obained was 125 to 250cc, providing immediate ligation of the cord was performed." p728.