PRIVATE CORD BLOOD BANK
In most cases after a baby delivery placentas and umbilical cords are routinely tossed in the trash throughout the country’s maternity hospitals. Today, and after more than 10 years of intensive research and about 1,500 stem cells transplants, these cells taken from umbilical cord blood seem like the wonder therapy for treating many diseases. Currently, expectant parents are increasingly faced with the decision of saving in a private blood cord bank, or donating this valuable resource, instead of throwing it away, as it has been done traditionally.
Studies have demonstrated the success and benefits from using umbilical cord stem cells to treat diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, several anemia disorders, and genetic diseases. The umbilical cord blood is a hematopoietic tissue, which means that it contains a mother stratum of cells which give rise to the blood cells that carry oxygen, fight infections, and form clots in injured sites and are more commonly known as red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Umbilical cord blood is considered as an effective alternative to bone marrow transplant therapy by many physicians and health institutions based on the results of their experimental use.
All this almost seems too simple: via saving a byproduct of the birth process, which has been traditionally discharged, and potentially saving a life.
Theoretically, this sounds rather simple. However, in the practice, umbilical cord use, collection, and storage even when currently it is possible thanks to the efforts of bank blood cord private companies which provide these kind of services, and their potential uses in therapy transplants, are even now, experimental, which still brings up many controversial issues and questions. Should a bank blood cord private company, only for future potential use by a family member, store the cord blood or should it be donated to a public bank for the benefit of other persons that may needed earlier? Which are the chances of a family ever using its bank blood cord private stored sample? What about the costs that are involved? Is this investment really worth it, if at the end, they never used their cord blood preserved?
In the early 1980s, scientists began serious studies and exhaustively research that used umbilical cord blood stem cells in lab animal transplants. After this, in 1988, the first person in the world to receive an umbilical cord stem cell transplant was a six-year-old boy from North Carolina dealing with a rare, inherited blood disorder called Fanconi's anemia. Doctors used the stem cells taken from his newborn healthy sister. This young boy became the first icon on umbilical cord blood stem cells transplants, since the therapy was successful and saved the family the waiting for a bone marrow perfect match to save their child’s life.