Cord Blood

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

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Cord blood is the blood found in the umbilical cord after a baby is born. It is becoming increasingly popular to bank this cord blood. The reason? The umbilical cord blood contains stem cells.

What are stem cells and why could they be important to the future health of your baby?

Stem cells from cord blood are cells that can create other kinds of beneficial blood cells. These other types of blood cells can be used to combat a variety of diseases that attack the immune system from certain blood diseases to certain varieties of cancers. As medical knowledge continues to advance it is also possible that a number of other diseases might be treatable with this umbilical cord blood.

Saving stem cells from cord blood is becoming a popular option because unlike bone marrow stem cell retrieval it is much easier to harvest and less dangerous to the patient. In fact, the procedure to collect cord blood from the baby at birth is painless for the baby and won't interrupt the birth process.

Another advantage of stem cells from cord blood is that there appears to be less chance of rejection from the host once the cells are introduced making it easier in the case of transplants and other uses.

Add to that the fact that banked cord blood is much more readily accessible than searching for a bone marrow donor through the bone marrow registries and you have an option that makes cord blood seemingly preferable to bone marrow for use in transplants.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Kish

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