Should you save your baby's cord blood?

What is a cord blood banking?

Cord blood banking is the process of collecting potentially vital stem cells from the umbilical cord and placenta and storing them for future use. Stem cells are immature cells that can take the form of other cells.

There are so many things to think about when you have a child. One of them is your baby's cord blood. It used to be discarded at birth, but now many parents store the blood for the future health of their child. Should it be done?

What can it be used for?

The fluid from the umbilical cord is saturated with stem cells. They can treat cancer, blood disorders like anemia, and certain immune system disorders that interfere with your body's ability to defend itself.

The fluid is easy to collect and contains 10 times more stem cells than cells taken from bone marrow.

Cord blood stem cells rarely carry infectious diseases and are twice as likely to be rejected as adult stem cells.

How do you get it?

If you want to save blood, after delivery, the doctor clamps the umbilical cord in two places, at a distance of about 25 cm from each other, and cuts the umbilical cord, separating the mother from the child. Then a needle is inserted and at least 40 milliliters of umbilical cord blood is taken. The blood is sealed in a bag and sent to a laboratory or cord blood bank for testing and storage. The procedure takes only a few minutes and is painless for mother and child.

The cord blood bank can also send tubes to collect the mother's blood. If so, there will be instructions in the bank kit, as well as blood collection tubes.

Where is it stored?

There are three options:

Public cord banks charge nothing for storage. Any donation is available to anyone who needs it. The bank may also use donated cord blood for research purposes.

Private (commercial) cord blood banks will store donated blood solely for the use of the donor and his family members. They can be expensive. These banks charge a processing fee and an annual storage fee.

Experts do not recommend or advise storing cord blood. He warns parents against private cord blood banks. That's why:

Collection and storage costs at private cord blood banks are high.
Other effective treatments may be available that are less expensive.
The chance of privately banked cord blood being used by your child is extremely low.

Stem cell transplantation using human umbilical cord blood cannot be used for genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and thalassemia because the genetic mutations that cause these disorders are present in the child's umbilical cord blood. Other diseases that can be treated with a stem cell transplant, such as leukemia, may also already be present in the baby's cord blood.

Experts advise against storing cord blood as a form of "biological insurance" because the benefits are too small to justify the costs.

Are there situations where a private cord blood bank might make sense? Some parents choose to save their child's blood if they don't know the child's medical history, such as if the parent was adopted or if the child was conceived by a sperm or egg donor.

Direct donation banks are a combination of public and private banks. They store cord blood for public use. But they also accept donations reserved for families. There are no fees.

Should you save your baby's cord blood?

It depends who you ask. Although commercial cord blood banks often bill for their services as "biological insurance" against future illnesses, blood is not often used. The study shows that the chance of a child using their cord blood during their lifetime is between 1 in 400 and 1 in 200,000.

Stored blood cannot always be used, even if the person later develops a disease, because if the disease were caused by a genetic mutation, it would also be in the stem cells. Current research suggests that stored blood may only be useful for 15 years.

There are other things to consider if you are having twins. If one of your twins was born with a genetic disorder or developed childhood leukemia, the cord blood probably contains the same code that caused the problem in the first place. It should not be used to treat twins or anyone else.

Cord blood cells from a healthy twin can be used to treat your other twin or another sick baby if they are compatible. But this advantage is greater when the two children have slightly different genetic makeup. This means that if your twins are identical, they will be poor blood donors for each other. If your twins are fraternal, they have the same chance as any other sibling to be a good donor for another twin. Whether the twins are identical or fraternal, cord blood can be used to treat another sick sibling.

Experts do not recommend routine cord blood storage. The groups say private banking should only be used when there is a sibling with the disease who can benefit from stem cells.

Experts recommend storing cord blood if an infant has a sibling with a malignant or genetic disease that can be treated with a cord blood transplant. These conditions include:

Leukemia
Immune deficiencies, such as severe combined immune deficiency
Lymphoma
Aplastic anemia
Sickle cell anemia
Krabbe's disease
Thalassemia
Other rare diseases

Even so, a sibling only has a 25% chance of being a perfect genetic match. For example, a sibling may need a bone marrow or cord blood transplant from an unrelated donor.

Experts also suggest considering setting up a private cord blood bank if there is a family history of malignant or genetic diseases that cord blood stem cells can help. But keep in mind that in order to find the right match for any kind of transplant, 70% must look outside their family.

Families are encouraged to donate stem cells to a government bank to help others.

If you decide to save your child's umbilical cord blood, there is one more thing to keep in mind: it's best not to make a last-minute decision. You must coordinate your actions with the bank before the birth of the child so that nothing is left to chance.

What the future holds

No one knows how stem cells will be used in the future, but researchers hope they can be used to treat many diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, heart failure, spinal cord injuries, and more.

It is possible that the current storage of your child's cord blood cells will someday come in handy in the fight against these diseases. At the moment, these treatments are just theories. It is also unclear whether cord blood stem cells would be useful in these potential treatments.