Why donating cord blood
is so important.

Why umbilical cord blood?

Umbilical cord blood is a potentially lucrative source of stem cells and the benefits of donating cord blood quickly become apparent when you start to look into the benefits of stem cell transplants. Stem cell transplants are already used, and in fact over 2000 stem cell transplants have been carried out using umbilical cord blood, but the main source for stem cells has been adult stem cells taken from bone marrow donors. These transfusions are used primarily in the care of patients suffering from blood and bone marrow related diseases like leukemia and anemia because adult stem cells are not primitive stem cells.

What are primitive stem cells?

Primitive stem cells have the potential to become any of the cells or tissue that our body requires to function and to regenerate. In contrast, adult stem cells already have a set function to perform within our bodies and while research is being conducted to try and find a way to coax these cells to perform other actions within our body, it is much more feasible to find primitive stem cells from other sources.

About embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are stem cells at their most primitive. Embryos at their earliest stage contain one stem cell, which can regenerate and create further stem cells. These stem cells have not yet been given a task to perform and so they can potentially become any cell or tissue that is found within our body. By giving primitive stem cells the correct stimulus and bodily conditions they can be persuaded to become specific cells as required in each patient.

About bone marrow transplants.

Because of the process involved in donating bone marrow there are far fewer donors than patients who require the transplanted marrow and this means that tens of thousands of patients go untreated every single year. Umbilical cord donation has no effect on either the patient, the donor or the birth process itself making it a simple, painless option. Once the child is born and takes its first few breaths independently of it's mother, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut as normal and only then is the blood collected from the cord. This is done either by using a syringe to draw the blood one end of the cord and collecting the blood as it runs from the other end. Either way has proved to be equally efficient and as soon as the blood is collected it is transported to where it will be cryogenically stored.

The advantages of donating cord blood.

The procedure is so unobtrusive that the father can still cut the cord if he wants to and both parents and the baby are completely unaffected. The blood is only removed at a time when the umbilical cord and the placenta would normally be disposed of anyway. It is vital that more umbilical cord blood is donated to ensure the lives of more and more patients that require transplants. Donated blood may also be used for research providing doctors with the evidence they need that further diseases can be treated through the effective use of umbilical cord blood transplants. Already there is strong evidence to show that many more degenerative diseases can potentially be treated using stem cell transplants from umbilical cord blood.

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