How such a small change can make such a big impact on the intellectual capacity of a nation
By Clementa Frederiksen, DVM, DACVPM, ICCE
Without a doubt, you’ve heard of TikTok. There are plenty of critics who point to evidence that the Chinese-owned social media platform may be destroying the minds of today’s youth. But have you heard of the “TICC TOCC” campaign to preserve and empower the minds of children around the globe? I will never forget when I watched a 2012 TED Talk called “90 Seconds to Change the World.”(1) I remember being struck by the many mind-blowing statistics that the American pediatrician, Dr. Alan Greene, quoted. In those days, I was a Bradley Method® Childbirth educator in California, and I would share this amazing TED Talk with my students. I thought it was extremely interesting and significant, but at that time, it didn’t feel directly relevant to me. Fast forward thirteen years, and what Dr. Greene said then, I believe I have been observing firsthand in the country of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Probably any medical professional working in the developing world has observed the same phenomenon.
It is well-known that iron deficiency affects intelligence; Dr. Greene stated that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), correcting iron deficiency in developing countries could increase productivity (GNP) by 20% (a huge health and economic benefit). While I could not find current data to support this claim, I did find on the WHO website’s Anemia Factsheet that, “Globally, it is estimated that 40% of all children aged 6–59 months, 37% of pregnant women, and 30% of women 15–49 years of age are affected by anemia. Anemia caused 50 million years of healthy life lost due to disability in 2019.” This concept, also referred to as “Disability-Adjusted Life Years” or DALYs, is a metric used to measure the overall burden of disease in a population. One DALY represents the loss of one year of healthy life due to premature death or disability (Google AI definition). Even in the United States, iron deficiency has been a significant problem. According to Dr. Greene in 2012, “Kids today 0-5 years of age in the US have lost 9 million IQ points from iron deficiency, at a price tag of $100 billion in lifetime lost earnings because of decreased intelligence.” (1)
Research shows that at the moment of birth, one-third of the newborn’s blood is in the placenta and cord2. Over the next 1-5 minutes, the baby gets 30% more blood volume and 60% more red blood cells (RBCs) as the blood recirculates back to the baby from the placenta (called “placental transfusion”). This is the equivalent of the baby’s first iron supplement, AND a packed red blood cell transfusion. This blood is also rich in white blood cells (WBCs), antibodies, and stem cells. Dr. Greene stated that, “32% of all newborn deaths are from infections.”(1) A recent (2024) study supports this, quoting a figure of 33%.4 Why are we depriving babies of their own WBCs to fight infection? And in addition, optimal cord care results in an “autologous stem cell transplant”(1) at birth and can potentially help prevent certain disorders such as muscular dystrophy (1). Dr. Greene, as well as a 2006 Lancet paper (3), tells us that it was a 1913 medical textbook that first recommended immediate cord clamping. This recommendation took hold and spread across the world. Dr. Greene laments that, as a result of this faulty guidance, we are “throwing this umbilical cord stem-cell-treasure in the trash.”(1) He questions whether this could be a leading reason for the rise of chronic illnesses in children today.
Speaking truthfully, immediate cord clamping is not an evidence-based practice. Other mammalian species throughout the world typically do not sever their newborns’ cords immediately. Because of Dr. Greene’s deep conviction that we can change the world by changing this one misguided obstetrical practice, in 2012, he introduced the TICC TOCC campaign = Transitioning from Immediate Cord Clamping to Optimal Cord Care. This TICC TOCC long predated today’s TikTok!
To come full circle, here in Kyrgyzstan, we are struggling with many concurrent factors that are contributing to the handicapping of the intellectual potential of generations of kids. In addition to causing anemia and brain hypoxia in the crucial first 1000 days (5) window of life by immediate cord clamping, we are also dealing with poor nutrition and intestinal parasitism (both of which contribute to childhood stunting), TV childcare starting from infancy, and a dismal educational system, just to name a few. All these factors combined result in the dumbing down of an entire society of people. (6) Sometimes the challenges seem overwhelming. But through our partnership with ICEA and our efforts to bring birth education, continuous labor support, and postpartum doula care to the women of Kyrgyzstan, we are providing education about optimal cord care, and this is just one way we can bring BIG change to our little corner of the world.
Dr. Frederiksen serves in Kyrgyzstan as the One Health Program Coordinator for a community development organization called Crosslink Development International.
Citations
- 90 Seconds to Change the World, Alan Greene, TEDxBrussels, Nov 14, 2012
- Frontiers in Pediatrics, 2019 Oct 9;7:405. Transfusion or Timing: The Role of Blood Volume in Delayed Cord Clamping During the Cardiovascular Transition at Birth
- The Lancet, Volume 367, Edition 9527, Pages 1956-1958, 2006 June 19. Delayed cord clamping increase infants’ iron stores
- Antibiotics 2024, 13(9), 877; Neonatal Infectious Disease: A Major Contributor to Infant Mortality Requiring Advances in Point-of-Care Diagnosis
- 1000 days, https://thousanddays.org/why-1000-days/
- Consider reading the books Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto (1992, 2017) or Dumbing Down America: The War on Our Nation’s Brightest Young Minds by James R Deslie (2014) to see how poor education is producing similar results in the USA (ie this is not just a problem in the developing world).
Please also see the ICEA Position Paper titled: Optimal Cord Clamping (01/2025)
