They only refer to the risk of anemia here, but there's also a significant
risk of oxygen starvation and immediate brain damage.  See:
http://www.cordclamp.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6949700.stm                                   

Early cord clamping may harm baby

Newborn baby
Early cord clamping after birth is widely practised

Clamping the umbilical cord straight after birth does not benefit
mother or baby and may actually be harmful, a UK expert has warned.

Instead, leaving the cord for around three minutes can boost the
baby's iron stores, cutting the risk of anaemia.

Babies born prematurely would particularly benefit from delayed
clamping where it is safe to do so, a British Medical Journal paper
said.

Experts recommended mothers-to-be discuss the issue with their
midwife.

Early clamping is widely used as part of "active birth management"
guidelines, which have been shown to prevent the mother haemorrhaging
immediately after birth.

It wouldn't be a big step not to clamp the cord for a while, and
that's what nature intended Professor Andrew Shennan, obstetrician

But Dr Andrew Weeks, senior lecturer in obstetrics at the University
of Liverpool, said although some steps were important, there was
no evidence that clamping the cord immediately had any benefit for
the mother.

In the baby, evidence has shown that allowing the cord blood to
keep flowing for a few minutes increases the iron stores.

In the developing world, where anaemia is a big problem, practices
have now changed to delay clamping and the World Health Organization
has dropped early clamping from its guidelines.

Reluctance

Dr Weeks, who is also a practising obstetrician, said it was time
to reconsider the practice in the UK.

"It would never be implemented now if it wasn't part of standard
practice, but people are reluctant to remove it because it's part
of current culture.

"There is now considerable evidence that early cord clamping does
not benefit mothers or babies and may even be harmful."

He recommended waiting three minutes in healthy babies but said the
issue was more complicated in babies born prematurely or by caesarean
section even though they would perhaps benefit the most.

"For them a policy of 'wait a minute' would be pragmatic," he added.

There have been concerns that in healthy babies delaying clamping
could increase the risk of jaundice, but a recent study in the US
suggested this was not the case.

Professor Andrew Shennan, spokesperson for the baby charity Tommy's,
said it was not currently routine to delay clamping.

"It wouldn't be a big step not to clamp the cord for a while, and
that's what nature intended.

"Asking a midwife to do that is a perfectly reasonable request -
this is an area we need to look at."

Pat O'Brien, obstetrician and spokesperson for the Royal College
of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said the profession needed to go
back and look at the evidence again.

"It's always been a question of risks and benefits, but time of
clamping hasn't really been looked at before."

But he added there were exceptions when it would be dangerous to
delay clamping because the baby needed medical support.

(oxygen starvation is not "medical support")