A new study has suggested that leaving the attachment of umbilical cord for some extra minutes at birth can help boost neurodevelopment several years later. Findings of the study were published on Tuesday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The study highlighted that children whose umbilical cords were cut more than three minutes after their birth had slightly higher social skills and fine motor skills as compared to those kids whose cord was cut within 10 seconds.

Dr. Heike Rabe, a neonatologist at Brighton & Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom, who was also a part of the study said, "There is growing evidence from a number of studies that all infants, those born at term and those born early, benefit from receiving extra blood from the placenta at birth".

Researchers during their study found that delaying the time of clamping of the cord allows more blood to transfer from the placenta to the infant, which in some cases can increase the infant's blood volume by up to a third.

The iron present in the blood increases infants' iron storage, and is also essential for healthy development of brain, they said.

Rabe said in a statement that the extra blood at the time of birth helps the baby to fight the transition from life in the womb.

Some earlier studies have shown higher levels of iron and other positive effects later in infancy in babies whose cords were clamped after several minutes of their birth. But very few of them have looked at results of after infancy.

Researchers in this study randomly assigned half of 263 healthy Swedish full-term newborns to have their cords clamped more than three minutes after birth. The rest were clamped less than 10 seconds after their birth.

Four years later, the children underwent a series of assessments for IQ, motor skills, social skills, problem-solving, communication skills and behavior.

Researchers found that kids with delayed cord clamping showed modestly higher scores in social skills and fine motor skills.