Umbilical Cord Resources

There are several reasons detecting a substance exposed newborn is important. Early detection provides many more options than detection at a later stage in the child’s life, and 

1. Early detection of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol effect (FAE) allow newborns to be identified and enrolled into early intervention and community programs. New programs are showing dramatic improvements in children identified earlier in life. 
2. Detection of a exposed child can allow help, intervention and treatment to be offered to the mother, so that exposure during future pregnancies may be prevented. 
3. As programs, understanding, and treatments improve, substance exposure detection, at a very early stage, can only help the outcome of the child, mother and family.

USDTL’s Umbilical Cord Testing is groundbreaking in newborn testing because it solves several problems:

• Every newborn has an umbilical cord; meconium is not available for every birth.
• Umbilical cord collection is a one-step procedure; meconium collection requires cumulative collections.
• Umbilical Cord Testing offers improved positivity rates for Methamphetamine, Benzodiazepines and Opiates.
• Umbilical Cord Testing improves the integrity of the chain-of-custody: only one donor and one collector are present during the collection. Meconium has multiple collections and multiple collectors.
• Umbilical Cord Testing improves turnaround time because umbilical cord is ready for transport a few minutes after the birth, while meconium passages can be delayed for days before being sent to the lab.