(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Umbilical cord blood is up to 180mL of blood from a newborn baby that is returned to the neonatal circulation if the umbilical cord is not prematurely clamped.[dubious – discuss] In some obstetric and midwifery practices, physiological extended-delayed cord clamping protocol, as well as water birth, allows for the cord blood to pulse into the neonate for 5–20 minutes after delivery. If the umbilical cord is not clamped, a physiological clamping occurs upon interaction with cold air, when the internal gelatinous substance, called Wharton’s jelly, swells around the umbilical artery and veins.

Why bank cord blood?
Birth is a one-time opportunity to help society by donating your child’s cord blood to a public bank. Cord blood contains stem cells that can save lives. Patients requiring a stem cell transplant will receive cells from one of three sources: bone marrow, circulating blood, or umbilical cord blood. The first two exist in all healthy adults, but cord blood can only be harvested and stored at birth. The section on cord blood transplants explains that it is easier to match transplant patients with cord blood than with the two sources of adult blood. Hence, establishing public banks of cord blood from donors with diverse tissue types can save many lives.

Birth is also a one-time opportunity to help your own family by saving your child’s cord blood. Transplant patients recover better when they receive stem cells from a related donor, instead of an unrelated donor. In the future, if there are regenerative medicine advances which can repair the body with the patient’s own stem cells, then children whose parents saved their cord blood will have better access to those treatments.

There is virtually no reason not to save your child’s cord blood. The only cautionary remarks which can be made about cord blood banking is that the cord should not be clamped too soon after birth.

Why doesn’t everybody bank cord blood?
Because it costs money. Whereas a bone marrow registry is based upon a computer data base of potential donors, a cord blood bank is based upon a laboratory where staff process the cord blood, freeze it in liquid nitrogen, and monitor the freezers.

Only a limited number of institutions have the funding to maintain public banks which take donations for free. This web site has a page which explains the types of cord blood banks, and another which tells you how to find a public bank in the US to accept your donation.

For most parents, cord blood donation is not an option because the number of locations served by public banks is very limited. In that case, parents have to decide if they want to and can afford to pay a private bank to process the cord blood and preserve it for the family.

Fortunately, there are financial assistance programs to help families which have a case of medical need, where a family member is at risk of needing a stem cell transplant.

Cord Blood Transplants (CBT)
Advantages of Cord Blood Transplants versus
Bone Marrow Transplants (BMT) or Peripheral Blood Stem Cells (PBSC)

* Harvesting umbilical cord blood poses no risk to mother or child, whereas a bone marrow donor must undergo a surgical procedure.
* Stored cord blood is ready for use as soon as it is needed, whereas the process of contacting and testing donors listed in a registry takes weeks to months.
* For transplants, the primary advantage of cord blood stem cells over stem cells from adults is that they cause much less graft versus host disease (GvHD). In order to safely transplant adult stem cells, the patient and donor must match over at least 10 of 12 tissue types called Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA), or 83% HLA match. By comparison, medical outcomes are just as good with cord blood that has a 4 out of 6 or 67% HLA match. (Reference: V Rocha, et al, 2000; NEJM 342:1846)

Disadvantages of CBT versus BMT or PBSCT:

* The main disadvantage of cord blood transplants is that they take at least a week longer to “engraft”, which means repopulate the patient’s blood supply so that cell counts reach minimum acceptable levels. The longer engraftment time is a risk because it leaves the patient vulnerable to a fatal infection for a longer time.
* A typical cord blood collection only contains enough stem cells to transplant a large child or small adult. This web site has a page explaining the optimum transplant dose. At one time it was believed that cell dose limitations restricted the use of cord blood transplants to children. In recent years growing numbers of adults are also receiving cord blood transplants, either by growing the cells in a lab prior to transplant, or by transplanting more than one cord blood unit at a time. More information about these trials is available on the web page about Research on Cord Blood Transplants.

The web page on Odds of Use reviews the probability that an individual in the United States will have a stem cell transplant over the course of a lifetime.

More info: http://parentsguidecordblood.org/

Related recipes:

1. A Quick words of Carbohydrates
2. Why the Day After Christmas Is Hazardous to Your Heart
3. SHERBET Punch
4. Green Tea Health Benefits
5. Weight and Diabetes: What’s the Relation?