Mommy Talk Show Candid Conversation with a TV Mom
There are as many good reasons to save umbilical cord blood, as there are diseases and conditions that it can potentially treat or cure. Cancers, heart disease, liver disease, various immune deficiencies and genetic disorders can be helped by the stem cells that cord blood contains. Therefore, parents who choose to donate cord blood to a public bank are making the choice to save lives, and contributing to an important medical resource from which they and their family members may well benefit in the future.
Simple and safe
The process of collecting cord blood takes about ten minutes and is entirely painless. Following the birth of a child, the cord is clamped before being cut and between three and five ounces of blood, a tiny amount, is extracted from the cord near the placenta. Sometimes the extraction is performed using a syringe; sometimes it is simply dripped into a sterile bag. The blood must then be tested, to ensure it is of top quality, before it is processed and frozen for storage. Umbilical cord blood is not the mother’s; it is the baby’s blood. If banked privately, cord blood is reserved for a specific family even though the need to use it for that family might never arise. When cord blood is banked in a public bank, it is available for individuals who have medical need of it, and who are a good genetic match; thus, there is a wider choice of potential matches.
Save the children
Coping with serious illness is difficult enough for adults, but where children are involved the situation can be extremely distressing and heartbreaking. Leukemia can be particularly virulent, and being able to access stem cells from cord blood can make the difference between saving, and not saving, a child’s life. The stem cells are blood cells that, like bone marrow cells, have the capacity to replicate and also to evolve and develop into other types of cells. This means they are also a good alternative to using bone marrow, and research has demonstrated that using cord blood stem cells for transplants is likely to have fewer side effects than using bone marrow. Introducing new cord blood stem cells can halt a disease that breeds malignant cells, such as cancer, and help restore the body’s defenses. Adults and children, including children of ethnic minority families, can benefit from a public bank that stores a wide variety of different blood types, making it easier to find an appropriate match.
Everything to gain
Parents opting to participate in cord blood collection will probably have realized that there are many important reasons to save their donation in a public bank, which is completely free of charge. A private bank takes an initial collection fee and then makes an annual charge for storage. In the unfortunate event that a child develops leukemia, for example, parents cannot make use of that child’s umbilical cord blood as this may reinforce the cancer. Instead, a good match with a sibling is one option, or a match with a person who is not a relative is possible via a public bank.
