An Educated Case for Banking Cord Blood

By Wendy Spry, LVN, CPSS and Healthcare Educator at PacifiCord

Banking your baby’s cord blood is a good thing to do. Why? Well, first and foremost, the stem cells found in your baby’s umbilical cord may otherwise be disposed as medical waste. These precious stem cells found in your baby’s umbilical cord would otherwise have the potential to treat your baby, a member of your family or a stranger in need of a transplant for a variety of diseases. Today, there are over 70 diseases that can be treated using stem cells found in cord blood. However, the most promising side of banking your baby’s cord blood is future applications. According to researchers, the possibility of curing Type 1 diabetes, spinal cord injuries, corneal repair, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, defective heart valves, and scores of other life threatening conditions is right around the corner.  The potential for stem cells is unlimited.

While the important thing is that you bank your baby’s cord blood—choosing a private family cord blood bank has some distinct advantages.  In the event your child, you or potentially a member of your immediate family needs a transplant, the key is finding a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match.  What does this mean? In order for your body to accept a transplant of stem cells to treat a particular disease or disorder, your body must be able to recognize these stem cells as familiar, not foreign. If your body sees the transplant as foreign, it will reject the stem cells and the transplant will have little chance for success. If you have a high HLA match, the chances of your body seeing the stem cells as familiar are greater, and thus the potential for a successful transplant is higher.

When you store your baby’s cord blood with a family cord blood bank, the cord blood belongs to you.  When you bank your cord blood with a public cord blood bank, you are donating your cord blood to the bank, and in the event your baby/child needs a transplant, you will not have access to their cord blood and will need to find a suitable match.  While seeking an HLA match among donors is certainly possible—30%-70% of people who need bone marrow transplants cannot find a match. Finding a proper match is especially problematic for African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and people of mixed ethnicity.  Why? Primarily because these ethnicities do not have a high number of donated cord blood units to public cord blood banks.

When you use your own cord blood for a transplant, the HLA match is exact since the cord blood stem cells came from your own body.  If you use your baby’s cord blood stem cells for a member of your immediate family—the chance of an HLA match is greater than if you were to seek a stem cell match from a donor.

In closing, choosing to store your baby’s cord blood either publically or privately is a good decision. The value of cord blood stem cells is far too important to let them be disposed as medical waste.  Have more questions? Email Nurse Wendy at: AskNurseWendy@PacifiCord.com.