There has been a lot of talk and argument about cord blood banking and whether or not it is a viable option for new parents to protect the health of their baby. The problem is that despite all the rhetoric many people are confused about what cord blood banking is, whether or not it is of benefit and how cord blood is used. Here are a few facts about cord blood banking that may help expectant parents understand what it is and whether or not it is viable for them and their child.
What is Cord Blood Banking?
Cord blood banking also called umbilical cord banking is the saving of the newborn infants umbilical cord to use at a later date by the child, a family member or a complete stranger. There are three kinds of cord blood banking, family, public and a third is when a family member has a condition that may be transplant treatable in the future.
In the case of family cord banking, a private cord bank stores the umbilical cord for an initial fee in case the child or a sibling may need the stem cells in the future. These fees are usually quite expensive the initial fee running around $2000 and then yearly storage fees in the vicinity of $200.00. When deciding if you want to privately store the cord blood most parents want to know what the chances are that their child might actually use the blood cells.
Dana-Farber institute
A study at the Dana-Farber institute concluded that the odds that a child would actually use his own cord blood was very low. They sighted the fact that the cord blood would contain the same disease the child was fighting and therefore would prove useless in such cases. The stem cells from a sibling would be more beneficial.
In the case where a family member already has a condition that may be transplant treatable in the future, the cost of processing and storing the cord blood is waived, making this option more viable for expectant parents.
Simply donating the cord to a blood bank donor program certainly seems to be an option if it could save someone’s life however, hospitals that participate in this program are few and far between and the mother has to give birth at one of the hospitals that are part of this program, making it a less viable solution than it would first appear.
Cord Blood Banking A Good Idea In Theory
The truth is that banking cord blood is a great idea in theory. Stem cell transplants actually do help restore the function of the bone marrow and siblings are a closer match than a perfect stranger would be which means that there would be less chance of rejection. However, considering how little risk there is that any of your children may need a marrow donor, as things stand, the cost is too prohibitive for most parents.
However, if better regulation occurs on these private cord banks and the cost begins to lower this may be an option more families will consider.
The same is true of public cord donation, while many parents would be more than willing to donate to a cord blood bank so that the blood stem of their child might benefit someone else, the idea of expecting a pregnant woman to travel a great distance in her last few weeks of pregnancy to give birth in a strange hospital to make such a donation prohibits most women from doing so.
In the future as the number of hospitals willing to do public cord donations increase more than likely you will see an increase in public cord blood banking.
The Future of Cord Blood Storage
Blood stem research continues to go on and if the research shows that cord blood is as promising as it seems to be there will be more and more changes in cord blood storage options in order to get more people to agree to donate. All it make take is one big breakthrough in this type of research and the obstacles preventing cord blood donations will be torn down.
For now there is simply no evidence that private cord blood storage will ever benefit the child who donates it and pamphlets and other sources who pray on expectant parents fears to extract these sums of money for such storage may be doing a grave disservice to the future of cord blood banking.