Weighing The Advantages Of Storing Infant Cord Blood

Expecting parents can make arrangements to store the cord blood before the baby is born. The cord blood is collected within 15 minutes of the birth of the child. There is no risk to either the mother or the baby in collecting this blood, since the umbilical cord and the attached placenta must come out of the body of the mother and be detached from the infant in any case. There is a fee to recover and test the blood, which can be as much as $2,000, and also a yearly fee to store the blood, which is frozen. If your family has a history of certain diseases and genetic conditions, it could be an important investment to store the cord blood. Or in some cases, the cord blood could unexpectedly be useful, for private or public purposes. In addition, the public storing of cord blood is expected to be expanded in the coming period. Cord blood is a safer, more readily available alternative for patients who require a bone marrow transplant. A minority of patients who need a bone marrow transplant have available relatives who can give one to them. By having cord blood banked and available to the public, more of these people's lives could be saved. Studies show that the cord blood is more potent in generating new blood producing cells than the bone marrow transplant. According to information from the March of Dimes organization, it is much more important to have cord blood available for potential use of unrelated individuals. Using cord blood is a largely experimental procedure which has been used only since 1988. It has obtained successful results in many cases. The main cases in which it would be worthwhile for a family to privately store its infants cord blood is if there is a history of certain genetic disorders or cancers in the family, particularly childhood cancers and genetic disorders. This is still a new procedure, to use cord blood to treat diseases. Over 6,000 patients worldwide have had cord blood transplants over the last 18 years, and most have been to unrelated individuals. There are about 300 cases where cord blood was used to treat and possibly save the life of the brother or sister of the infant who provided the cord blood. Diseases that have been treated with cord blood include Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, Solid Tumors, Sickle Cell Anemia, Thalassemia, Neuroblastoma and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.