Banking Your Newborn’s Cord Blood
Why is it necessary to bank your newborn’s cord blood?
When a baby is born the parents worry about all possible things that could be associated with the baby apart from the fact that the baby can someday fall ill. Some parents make sure that they take precautions right at the beginning of the newborn’s journey of life by banking its cord blood. Cord blood transplant has a major role to play in this regard.
The placenta is a temporary organ which transfers nutrients and oxygen to the baby when it is in its mother’s body, that is, the uterus. Researchers have found out that the umbilical cord which was discarded right after the birth of a child can serve the purpose of a bone marrow donor by supplying blood-forming or hematopoietic stem cells.
A child may be adversely affected by illnesses like childhood cancer, blood diseases, immune system disorders, etc. All these diseases require radiation therapy or chemotherapy to kill the destructive cells in the body. These treatments kill good cells too and this leads to the need of having a stem cell therapy. In this process new and healthy cells are produced in the baby’s body.
Banking your baby’s cord blood can be a natural way of protecting y child from a blood-borne disease. It forms a natural source of important stem cells which can be used for any ailing person. A number of cord blood stem cell therapies are available that can treat 80 different diseases. There are a number of companies which are working towards the protection of the health of pregnant women, babies and the respective families.
How can cord blood banking protect my family?
When severe needs arise and one of your family members need a blood transplantation then you can always depend on the baby’s cord blood that you have saved. It can be used for treating patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, and other types of cancer and blood disorders. This is an application in the field of transplant medicine.
A newborn baby’s cord blood can further be used in case of regenerative medicine. It finds its use in treatments for cerebral palsy, juvenile diabetes, traumatic brain injury, etc. It further saves you from the trouble of locating a matching donor when transplants are concerned.
The transplant has more use. When bone marrow transplants are being considered there are all possible chances that it could be rejected by the recipient’s body. For example, if your child is suffering from some disease and requires stem cell transplant you can consider yourself to be completely safe if his or her cord blood had already been banked as there is no chance that the child’s body will reject its own stem cells.
How to do cord blood banking?
All you need to do is store your newborn baby’s umbilical cord and placenta during delivery with some medical aid. This becomes very important for medical purposes in the future for example in case of blood transplant.