Background- Annually 1 million newborns worldwide die of infection caused by bacteria thatrnenter the body via the umbilical cord. Regarding this the Ethiopia national strategy of new bornrnand child survival identified chlorhexidine (CHX) as one of the high impact intervention tornminimize neonatal mortality. Whereas, studies have shown Human breast milk (HBM)rnapplication to the neonatal umbilical cord has a shorter cord separation time and lower rate ofrninfection than CHX or the standard dry cord care (DCC). To the best of the investigatorsrnknowledge on to assess cord separation time and rate of cord infection, studies were notrnconducted comparing the standard DCC with that of CHX or HBM. rnObjective: - Compare the effect of topical application of HBM, CHX and DCC on neonatalrnumbilical cord separation time (CST) and assess the rate of cord infection at the Demographicrnand Health Surveillance Site, Butajira, Ethiopia, 2017/18.rn rnMethod- From May to November, 2018, a three arm, non- masked, community based, clusterrnrandomized controlled trial was conducted at Butajira Demographic and Health Surveillance sitern(BDHSS) located in Gurage Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and PeoplesÂ´ Regionrn(SNNPR) of Ethiopia. Nine kebeles of the BHDSS were randomized into two interventionrngroups i.e. HBM and CHX and a control group which is the standard DCC using a lotteryrnmethod. From a sample size of 337, data were entered and analyzed for 302 term singletonrnnewborns. Baseline characteristics across the groups were compared by ANOVA for continuousrnvariables and Chi square for categorical variables. Mean CST was compared among the groupsrnusing one way ANOVA whereas the secondary outcome i.e. rate of omphalities was expressedrnin terms of frequency and was compared among the groups using Chi square. Level ofrnsignificance was set at p