Umbilical cord blood is the blood found in the umbilical cord and in the placenta of the pregnant mother.

This blood is isolated at the time of birth of the child by a painless and save method. Prior arrangements are to be made by the parents to store the cord blood.

Preservation of the cord blood is necessary for the future health of the baby as the cord blood contains large amount of blood making cells known as stem cells. These stem cells can produce platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells in the blood of the human body.

These cord blood stem cells are proved to be useful in curing transplantable diseases which include leukaemia, lymphoma, aplastic anaemia, sickle cell anaemia and cancers etc. cord blood also helps in treating various immune deficiency syndromes.

Though the cord blood transplant is not done in the case of larger adults, because of the small quantity of the cord blood, still this transplant is very useful and even better than other processes in the case of children and the young persons. This cord blood is drawn by cutting the umbilical cord just within few minutes after the birth of the child. This process is safe and does not have any impact on the life of the mother and the child.

After the cord blood is drawn, it is stored in the sterile bags and transferred to the cord blood bank. It is the selection of the donor to decide whether he wants to store his baby’s cord blood at any private cord blood bank or he can donate it to a public cord blood bank for the treatment of other children and adults or he can donate it to any research centre for the purpose of research.

Private cord blood banking charges money for this purpose but there is no fee charged by the public cord blood bankers. Before storing the cord blood, doctors check its volume and test whether it is free from any kind of infection or not. Even the medical history of the family is to be cross checked before storing the cord blood.

Storing the cord blood is of great help to the child’s medical future. These cells, once stored, can last for long as the cord blood is stored under cryogenic conditions after going through a series of tests.

Although storing cord blood is very beneficial but it is a very costly business when private blood bank is concerned. Studies have not yet found out that whether using the same blood for the child which it has given is of any special use. If not so than the cord blood can also be donated to the public cord blood banks from where the child can get the blood at the time of need, though it will not be of its own.

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