Parent's guide to cord blood

Cord blood also known as placenta blood is an invaluable resource that was being wasted until all the research work was carried out which enlightened its value. Cord blood which is only found in the placenta and the umbilical cord after a baby is born, provides a wonderful opportunity to parents to save a life in the future.

The main content of cord blood is young stem cells, which can be used to treat a large number of illnesses and diseases. Stem cells can also be found in bone marrow but these do not prove as useful as the one's present in cord blood, as finding the exact bone marrow match is very difficult job .

The cells from the bone marrow are difficult to extract and also face a high risk of rejection from the acceptor. But the stem cells from cord blood are adaptable and young.

Therefore they do not require an exact match, which incredibly increases the chances of success and reduces the risk of rejection. Also the cord blood can be used to save the life of the baby or other relatives and the chances of successfully using stem cells for the baby and relatives are much higher than using them for any other person.

The cord blood can be and is being successfully used in treatment of the many critical diseases and disorders like cancers, metabolism abnormalities, bone marrow abnormalities, immunodeficiency disorders.

Beside this research is being carried out to find out more diseases which can be cured using the stem cells from the cord blood. Also awareness is being spread among the people to save this resource and to increase the number of donations of stem cell.

Now the when the cord blood is collected parents are having two options to how to put their baby’s cord blood to use. It can be used to save another person’s life if the parents feel like donating the cord blood. Donating it cost nothing and put the blood to a noble use.

The other option is saving the blood exclusively for the baby or baby’s family to be used in future when the need arise. But this can be costly and a fee is charged for storing the cord blood. But the parents see it the other way as a health insurance cover and thus pay the fees to buy peace of mind.

The collection of cord blood is easy and fast. The collection does not affect the baby or the mother in any way. The blood is collected by a doctor, its then send to the cord blood bank which is chosen by the parents using courier. In the blood bank the stem cells are extracted after testing and are then stored for the future use.

From research it has been found out that stem cells can be stored for at least ten years and possibly far longer.Cord blood is a very valuable resource and one should see to it that it does not go wasted in any way.

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