Due a litter and trying to plan...
I’m stuck with umbilical cord care. I'm a midwife, we do nothing and discourage putting anything on the cord other than a clamp. But from what I’ve read puppies should have iodine on? But I can’t get hold of this!!!
Anyone have any alternative recommendations?
I’ve seen something called leucillin spray? Is this a good replacement?
Also is it just a one off application when they’re are born, or a daily cleaning thing?
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of info I can find regarding what’s best, so any advice appreciated!

I think you need to read up a bit more before your pups are due. “ The book of the Bitch” is often recommended.
I don’t mean to be rude but human babies and dog puppies are not the same. You need to put to one side your midwife training as I don’t think it’s transferable. I say this as someone who lives with a midwife who has never been hands on with delivering puppies as she knows it’s not the same.
You mustn’t put anything on the cords that the bitch would ingest.

Not the answer to your question but I keep leucillian in for dogs and humans as an antiseptic spray .seems to work  well

> we do nothing and discourage putting anything on the cord

Just the same for puppies, if Mum doesn't do it herself after a few minutes you can just use your fingers to crush and tear the cord, or blunt scissors. There's no rush, they still get some goodness from the cord for a minute or so after birth. Remember Mum is going to be licking pups all over so best not to use anything on the cord.

I’ve done a fair bit of reading.
I’ve read “the book of the bitch” but it seems outdated and lacks current research. The evidence base doesn’t seem to be amazing either

Brill, thank you

The book of the bitch was written a long time ago by a very experienced dog breeder. Breeding dogs isn't a science based skill, no amount of research & experiment/studies can cover every eventuality.

If you ask a vet how long it takes for bitch to whelp, they will give you a scientific answer, however bitches don't all conform to science, a friend of mine had a bitch that whelped 7(seven)puppies in 70 minutes, she never appeared to go through the early stages of whelping as she was fast asleep laid next to my friend, she woke up & delivered the first pup within 5 mins. Clever bitch popped into her whelping box to deliver the litter & when she had finished & had been cleaned up, she happily nursed her puppies. My friend's vet was amazed at the speed of the whelping, her daughter & grand daughter were equally speedy giving birth.

Don't put anything on umbilical cords. All you need to do (if anything) is hold them whilst mum chews them off, because very occasionally a bitch will chew off too close to the body or will pull too much, and it can create a little hernia. So some breeders just hold the base of the cord gently whilst mum chews.

You don't need to put iodine or leucillin or anything else on them. They will look ragged for a while and will dry up and fall off very soon.

It's a bad idea to put anything on the cords. If the bitch doesn't deal with them herself you need to break them using your thumbnails to crush and seal the blood vessels, and then leave them to dry and fall off. No need even for a clamp! The bitch's tongue will do any cleaning needed. The advice and information in Book of the Bitch is excellent; it was written by very experienced people. No two whelpings will be the same, even in the same bitch (one of mine had her first litter of 12 in 4 four hours, but took 14 hours delivering her second litter (13 pups), for instance). basically you need to ignore what you know about human birthings - ideally all you'll be needed to do is watch from a distance and leave it all to the bitch.

Did you ever try Leucillin?

I’ve read that using iodine prevents navel ill and it should be applied daily. My poor pups umbilical cord has been licked completely off and I am wondering if I could use Leucillin to help prevent infection as I have this at home.

I ended up going natural, let mum do all the work and have not put a single thing on the cords. They’ve been fine, most came off by day 2 and are healing lovely!

Excellent! It's far better when human interference is kept to an absolute minimum. The animals invariably know better than we do. Congratulations!