Umbilical Cord Blood Banking

Public cord blood donation an idea whose time has come.

You would think that banking your baby’s cord blood is a very popular practice by new parents if you are a regular reader of parenting magazines. There are a lot of advertisements that encourage you to become a customer.

It is true that most parents think it is a good idea and usually jump at the chance of doing something to keep their baby healthy and possibly save their life. Yet it is still only a small percentage of parents who actually final do bank their baby’s cord blood. Why is that?

The high cost of umbilical cord blood banking is probably the number one reason. This is true when it comes to even those parents who can afford it. They consider how unlikely it is that they would ever need to use that banked cord blood and decide that the money will be spent on something else for the child a trust account for education or something else they consider important.

Some very informed authorities on the subject have concluded that private storage of umbilical cord blood as a kind of insurance against the vagaries of biology is not necessarily a wise decision. Numbered among those authorities on the subject who feel that way is the American Academy of Pediatrics.

That does not mean that the organization is against  cord blood banking . They do in fact encourage parents to donate their baby’s cord blood to public cord blood banks. This in the hope that this will provide  another source of stem cells for patients who have no matching donor in their own family, and cannot find an unrelated donor in bone marrow donor registries that is a  match and for whom time is a critical element.

Public cord blood banks often provide a source of cord blood for parents who actually stored their baby’s cord blood in a private bank, when they find that they are not able to use it. This is not uncommon since often when a child’s need for a transplant arises the blood cord cells are  ruled out for fear they,the blood cells sored from the sick baby may be corrupted. Fortunately they can take advantage of the generosity and forethought of parents who  have engaged in donating umbilical cord blood.

If you are interested in donating your baby’s cord blood to a public cord blood bank, talk to your doctor to see if there is one available in your area. It is unfortunate that,the umbilical cord blood banks that allow you to donate cord blood aren’t yet abundant. There is hope that new pending congressional legislation will redefine a national cord blood program and hopefully will remedy this.

For more info on where public cord blood donation can be made see National Blood Donor Program   A good source of a parents guide to cord blood.

national cord blood program

donate umbilical cord blood

A bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be a treatment option for your disease. Bone marrow or cord blood transplants can be used to treat patients with life-threatening blood, immune system or genetic disorders.This type of transplant may also be a treatment option for certain genetic and immune system  disorders. The diseases listed below are those that may be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. The list includes diagnoses for which transplant is a standard treatment as well as diagnoses for which the role of transplant is a newer option. Diseases which treatable with use of transplanting of umbilical cord stem cells include:
 

:

Leukemias and lymphomas, including:

1. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
2. Chronic myelogenous leukemia
3. Chronicmyelogenous leukemia

1. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
2. Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia
3. Hodgkin’s lymphoma
4. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Leukemia cells. When diagnosed the patient is likely to be advantaged by cord blood transplant.

Multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders

Severe aplastic anemia and other marrow failure states, including:

1. Severe aplastic anemia
2. Fanconi anemia
3. Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)
4. Pure red cell aplasia
5. Amegakaryocytosis / congenital thrombocytopenia

SCID and other inherited immune system disorders, including:

1. Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID, all sub-types)
2. Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome

Hemoglobinopathies, including:

1. Beta thalassemia major
2. Sickle cell disease

Hurler’s syndrome and other inherited metabolic disorders, including:

1. Hurler’s syndrome (MPS-IH)
2. Adrenoleukodystrophy
3. Metachromatic leukodystrophy

Myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative disorders, including:

1. Refractory anemia (all types)
2. Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia
3. Agnogenic myeloid metaplasia (myelofibrosis)
4. Familial erythrophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and other histiocytic disorders

The cells used in cord blood transplants come in just a few varieties.

A  cord blood transplant or bone marrow transplant will replace your unhealthy blood-forming cells. The desired outcome is for the replacement cells in this process of engraftment to become vibrant and  healthy ones. The life saving cells that used in transplants can come from one of the three following sources:

• Peripheral or circulating blood this is also called known as peripheral blood stem cell transplant
• Blood collected from an umbilical cord or mother’s placenta after a baby is born
• bone marrow

When you need a transplant, your transplant surgeon based on a variety of factors will choose the source of cells that he deems  is best for you.

Your physician  also decides whether to use your own blood-forming cells or cells collected from someone else. This choice depends largely on your disease and some other important health factors.

Blood lab tecnicians play an important role in the world of umbilical cord blood collection and testing for transplants.

• A cord blood stem cell transplant using your own cells is known as an autologous transplant. In the case of an autologous transplant, the cells will be collected from your bloodstream or, occasionally from your marrow and stored for your transplant.
• A cell transplant using cells from one of your family members, unrelated donor or cord blood unit is known as an allogeneic transplant.
• A cord blood stem cell transplant using cells from an identical twin is known as a syngeneic transplant.

If you  have no donor in your family, the physician has the option to search the National Marrow Donor Program Registry, a vitally important cord blood program this provides access to in excess of fourteen million volunteer donors on the global donor listing. This includes more than seven million volunteer donors and nearly one hundred thousand cord blood units on the marrow donor registry it also includes donors who available through previous agreements with internationally cooperating registries.

Time varies in this process and  it will take as little as just a few weeks to a few months or even more to find a donor or cord blood unit that is suited to the purpose. Unfortunately, not everyone will find a suitable match. If your physician is unable to find a suitable donor or cord blood unit for you, he or she will then turn to other treatment options. A haploidentical donor is among those options this means using a partly matched family member.

In the instance where the patient needs an allogeneic transplant, the doctor will seek a donor or cord blood unit that matches your HLA tissue type. This is based on human leukocyte antigen, a marker your immune system uses to recognize the cells belong in your body and which it believes are foreign.The human leukocyte antigen tissue types are inherited, This is what accounts for the fact that your best chance of finding a match is with a brother or sister. However, seven out of ten of patients tested do not have a suitable donor in their family.

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Maximizing use of cells in core blood storage. saving cord blood will soon yield greater numbers of of cord blood stem cells for transplant

About us at Umbilical cord blood banking, saving cord blood for transplant website

Umbilical Cord Blood Banking weblog  is dedicated to providing quality information on the very important subject of life saving cord blood.

Here you will find helpful reviews, informative information and tips and much more on the subject of saving cord blood to provide to provide stem cells for transplant . This site is in the format of a ‘weblog’ so that each time I post new information, it will come to the top of the front page. This means that you can check back here frequently to see new updates to the information found here.

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All the best,

cord blood banks webmaster

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