Cord Blood: Part One – Understanding The Benefits

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Every new parent faces an important decision, whether to store his or her child’s umbilical cord blood to possibly treat illness down the road.

A North Texas family says their choice to save their daughter’s cord blood saved her life, and has continued to help in her development three years later.

Imagine being told your child may never eat, see, walk or talk. That’s what the Johnson family was told.

Three years later their daughter Caroline is not only asking for food, she’s walking into the kitchen to get it.

Caroline was born with Hydrocephalus – fluid on the brain. Doctors immediately put the girl on a ventilator.

“We didn’t want her to live life on a machine, we just wanted her to go to Heaven if that was God’s will,” said Caroline’s mother Leigh Johnson.

“The doctors prepared us for her not to make it,” Caroline’s dad Russ Johnson recalled.

But when they took Caroline off the machine, she took everyone by surprise – continuing to breath and fight.

Five days later doctors sent the fragile newborn home with hospice, and with parents on a mission. “We feel like we took it in our own hands and left the hospital.”

The Johnson’s remembered they had saved Caroline’s cord blood, a recommendation of their OB-Gyn before anyone knew anything was wrong.

A 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association says research shows doctors have used stem cells treat cancers, blood disorders, immune system deficiencies and tumors.

“The whole theory of the stem cells, they go into your body and become any type of cell and it’s amazing, our prayer is they went to her brain, and I believe they did,” says Leigh Johnson.

After several infusions of her own cord blood and many hours of therapy a week, the Johnson’s say their ‘little miracle’ is beating all odds, slowly but surely. “She’s living proof, we were told she wasn’t going to do anything. Now I can barely keep her in my lap,” says Russ.

“We really believe in it and believe it has helped Caroline tremendously,” says Leigh.

The Johnsons stored Caroline’s blood with CBR Cord Blood Registry, a private company based in San Bruno, California.

But another North Texas family had completely different experiences after using another California-based company.

Umbilical Cord Blood Banking Covington

    Umbilical Cord Blood Banking CovingtonLifeSource Cryobank (LifeSource) is a physician inspired company with the purpose of providing expectant parents/families with the highest quality medical resources regarding the collection, processing and storage of their baby’s umbilical cord blood stem cells.  It is our goal to provide parents with a medical resource for questions concerning the importance of understanding the biology and properties of adult stem cells, their collection from UCB and future benefits involved with their storage.
In addition, LifeSource provide a secure and trusted environment to store these unique cells.

About Cord Blood: 

Cord blood is blood from the umbilical cord (UCB) of a new baby and retrieved from the placenta after birth.  UCB is a unique product rich in adult stem cells. These cells due to their distinct biological properties are considered today as one of the most attractive candidates for the implementation of biological therapies. Among the types of stem cells present in UCB, the hematopoietic stem cells are probably the best known. This type of stem cell can grow all the cells in the blood. They are severely damaged in patients suffering from malignancies, bone marrow failure disorders and inherited metabolic and immunological disorders.

Recent findings have shown that UCB also contains mesenchymal stem cells, and endothelial progenitor cells. These types of stem cells are capable to give rise to tissues such as bone, cartilage, fat, cardiac muscle and new blood vessels. Consequently, umbilical cord blood  contains cells with a vast potential for the  treatment of diseases not only related with the bone marrow, but multiple cancers, heart conditions, circulatory problems, fractures, cartilage disorders and neurological diseases.

At present, stem cells as those present in UCB are already in use or have a great potential for use in clinical procedures associated to reparative medicine or regenerative medicine. The best example of the clinical utilization of UCB-derived stem cells is the administration of hematopoietic stem cells, by means of transplants, for the treatment of life-threatening diseases both in children and adults.

Umbilical cord blood, previously considered a waste product, can now be collected at birth from both vaginal deliveries and caesarean sections, either in utero or ex utero . Once collected, UCB is processed, cryopreserved and stored at low temperatures to provide an 'off-the-shelf' product.  The UCB collection and banking process is safe, simple and painless and does not harm the mother or baby.

Reasons to Save Cord Blood:

    You only have one chance to collect these unique UCB cells.
    Stem cells can save lives.
    Banking your baby’s stem cells guarantees an immediately available, 100% immunological matched, product for a future transplant of the baby and a biological product with a very high matching rate for siblings or close relatives.
    UCB stem cells are considered one of the most promising medical treatments of the future. The clinical utilization of stem cells (regenerative medicine) represents the latest advance in treatment of multiple diseases. Instead of replacing damaged organs or chemical balance with surgery or medicine, regenerative medicines with stem cells has the potential of rebuilding such damaged organs or repair those imbalances.
    New medical advances using stem cells are occurring rapidly and the diseases that can be treated with this technology is constantly increasing.

Should you bank your baby’s umbilical cord blood?

The promising field of stem cell research is prompting more and more parents to store their newborn’s umbilical cord blood for possible use in treating future disease. Cord blood is rich in blood-forming stem cells and is currently used in transplants for some patients with leukemia, lymphoma, immune deficiencies and inherited metabolic disorders. Most infusions come from unrelated donors, partly because of concerns that receiving one’s own defective cells may cause the same diseases to return.

Now, early research shows that cord blood may be able to safely regenerate other types of cells in the body, fueling optimism that doctors may one day routinely use a patient’s own stored cord blood to treat such conditions as cerebral palsy (CP), stroke, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. (toddler Dallas Hextell, diagnosed with CP at 8 months old, made headlines after his skills appeared to improve following an infusion of his own cord blood.)
However, only time will tell how stem cell research pans out and if cord blood is the best source, notes Jeffrey Ecker, M.D., an associate professor of OB-GYN at Harvard Medical School in Boston. It’s also unclear how long stored stem cells are viable.

How to choose a bank
For information on donating cord blood for use by anyone who needs it, visit marrow.org.  If you’re considering private banking, do your homework:

    · Ask around. Seek advice and recommendations from your friends and physician.
    · Check credentials. How long has the bank been in business?  Is it profitable? (If it goes out of business, you could lose the cord blood.) Does the bank have experience with successful transplants?  Is it accredited by a group such as the American Association of Blood Banks?.
    · Compare costs. Collection fees range from $1,000 to $2,000; payment plans and, occasionally, gift registries are available. There are banks that have no annual fees and those charging a yearly fee for storage.

Private or public?
Leading medical groups encourage parents to donate cord blood to one of the nation’s more than 30 public banks if possible rather than banking it privately, because they say the stem cells are more likely to be used this way. However, you cannot get your baby’s cord blood back, nor is there any guarantee of a match if the cord blood is needed later. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges (and 21 states now require) doctors to discuss the pros and cons of private vs. public banking with patients and remains conservative, citing odds of 1 in 2,700 that privately banked blood will be used by a particular family.

Facts about cord blood banking

The main facility of cord blood banking is it stores your umbilical cord blood and which can be used for you and your family in case of any medical emergency. A cord blood bank has developed for public and private cord blood banking. Both of them are supported by the medical community. The system of cord blood banking was first invented in 1990s. The collection of cord blood is used to preserve cryopreserved method at 1960c. The stem cell banking offers two different types of storage facilities umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell and a unique opportunity for storage of umbilical cord blood stem cell. Normally the stem cell banking is given a non-invasive procedure. Thecord blood banking is probably one of the most amazing gifts of the child during pregnancy. The method of umbilical cord process has a rich supply of fresh stem cells and it can be manipulated into other parts such as blood products that our bodies need to survive, various organs, blood and tissues. The main advantage of cord blood banking is the process of obtaining newborns umbilical blood, oxygen to the growing fetus and the channel for provision of nutrients. Another important uses of umbilical blood is totally painless to both. The initial set up cost of private cord comes nearly around 2000 dollars.

Cord Blood Umbilical Cord Bank

Regenerative medicine is an area of ​​medical research to develop therapies to repair or re-grow the tissue specific in the body. Cord Blood Because even a person cord blood stem cells can be safely fed back into that individual , without being rejected by the body’s immune system- and because they have unique characteristics compared [...]

Regenerative medicine is an area of ​​medical research to develop therapies to repair or re-grow the tissue specific in the body. Cord Blood Because even a person cord blood stem cells can be safely fed back into that individual , without being rejected by the body’s immune system- and because they have unique characteristics compared to other sources of stem cells- they are an increased attention of research in regenerative medicine.Umbilical cord hematopoietic stem cell transplants are used to treat a variety of cancer, genetics, immunodeficiency and blood disorders. In most cases, doctors and hospitals simply discard cord blood after childbirth. But when one child is born, the parents can choose to donate umbilical cord blood of their babies to a public bank or store for personal use with a cord blood bank private. Cord blood stem cells technologies analyzed in this report include Stem Cellular Transplant, cord blood banks, blood transfusion, Genetics and Cell Based xenografts. The report is also analyzes the global market for stem cell therapeutic areas including neurology, oncology, cardiology, dermatology and others.

Depending on illness and the treatments required, some children need a bone marrow transplants. Hematopoietic stem cell from the donor are transplanted into the child is sick, and these cells go to the manufacture of new healthy blood cells and enhance the capacity of the child ‘s blood and immune system produces. Alternatively, parents can give their blood to their baby’s umbilical cord in a public bank for free..