Cord Blood Stem Cell Collecting
Many people would think that umbilical cord blood banking was made up by marketing, as a trendy, profitable, and disguised way of facing parents with the new decision of preserving or not their newborn children’s cord blood. Starting from advertising in parenting magazines, private bank companies’ direct mailings, as well as flyers and informative articles frequently found on the tables at the waiting rooms of their obstetrician's office regarding this issue. Confused expecting parents are constantly pushed on deciding whether or not saving their baby's umbilical cord blood, for possible future use and with this, not to waste the opportunity of saving his or her life.
Since it is completely painless and simple to take a sample of the baby's umbilical cord blood, it is a fact that many parents opt for cord blood storage at a private bank moved mainly by emotional blackmailing. Statistical figures are really sharp; the chances of a child using his or her own cord blood sample are practically remote, a significantly reduced number of 1:200 000, while other experts consider this possibility even more reduced. If we add to this the investment needed to cover for a cord blood private bank storage services (an average of $1,500 as an enrollment fee and an annual storage charge of $100), the decision is even harder.
Blood cell collecting cord stem does not work the same in those families where cases of cancers and other genetic and immunodeficiencies are present in some family members. For these reasons, within high-risk groups it is not just advisable but wise to store the umbilical cord blood of their healthy children in order to have available stem cells available in case they are needed for future stem cell transplantation.
The blood cell collecting cord stem procedure is made by public and private cord blood banks. At the moment of a baby’s delivery, and right after the umbilical is cut and clamped from the baby’s body, the cord blood sample is taken from an 8-10 inch portion of the umbilical cord by inserting a blood needle bag, and by simple gravity, it runs into the blood container. Blood cell collecting cord stem is next transported by a medical courier to the bank so a series of testing are performed in order to verify if the sample is infection free, not contaminated, and also to count the stem cells availability prior preservation processing of the sample. Even when all this research is too recent and the therapeutic use of cord blood stem cells is yet experimental, the potential future applications of this alternative keep scientists and medical researchers optimistic and focused on new ways of using these amazing cells.