Umbilical Cord Stem

Many doctors believe that women should store their baby’s umbilical cord stem cells for future use. The way to obtain these cells is to save the umbilical cord tissue and cord blood (the blood in the cord) when the baby is born.

Saving the cord blood is a harmless procedure that will have no effect on either the mother or the baby. Many hospitals in the United States now offer cord blood banking services designed to save umbilical cord blood and tissue. Women should ask about these services before they go into give birth.

Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Blood Banking

There are two types of cord blood banking being offered at hospitals in the United States today: public and private cord blood banking. Women should ask which type of cord blood banking is being offered at a hospital.

Public cord blood banking saves stem cells for research. Scientists are now doing a wide variety of research into the use of stem cells. Most of this research is designed to use stem cells to grow tissue that will be used to replace tissue damaged or destroyed by disease or injuries.

The drawback to public cord blood banking is that the baby’s stem cells will not be registered and kept for specific use in the future. Public banks don’t register cord blood so it will be impossible for doctor’s to locate a specific child’s cord blood.

A private cord blood bank will keep a specific child’s cord blood registered. This means that doctors will be able to locate that child’s cord blood and harvest stem cells from it in the future.

Umbilical Cord Stem Cells

Many doctors believe that a woman should save her baby’s cord blood because doctors will be to use umbilical cord stem cells to develop treatments specifically for a child in the future.

Doctors could theoretically grow a new liver or kidneys for a child that needed a transplant at some point in the future. Doctors can’t do this today but scientists are working on regenerative medicine which could enable them to do this at some point in the future.

Umbilical cord stem cells can now be used to grow bone marrow for donations. Bone marrow can be used to treat some diseases including leukemia and in some cases cure those conditions.

A child’s specific stem cells will be needed to avoid the possibility of rejection. The body can reject transplants, the use of a child’s genetic material can prevent this.