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Banking Cord Blood Stem Cells
1. Why should I store my baby’s cord blood?
First and foremost, this is a one time opportunity to do this for your child. You can only collect cord blood at birth. By doing this, you are giving your child the potential opportunity to benefit medically from many of the already proven life saving procedures. More importantly, you are putting your children in a new generation of children who may be able to benefit from the potential of stem cells in the future. Storing stem cells is like taking out an insurance policy to potentially insure the health of your family in the years to come. Hopefully, you will never need to use your child’s cord blood stem cells, but if the need arises, you can rest assured that they are readily available.
2. Isn’t storing your baby’s cord blood stem cells only for people with a history of family diseases such as leukemia?
In the early days of cord blood banking, the majority of families that chose to bank were families that were genetically predisposed to childhood diseases such as leukemia, etc. Today, there are thousands of families all around the globe that have decided to collect and store their babies’ umbilical cord blood for many reasons. Not only have the therapeutic applications of stem cells increased, but the potential for their uses in the future increases everyday.
3. Are there special circumstances in which people may want to consider private blood banking?
Family History
If you have a family history of high risk medical disorders for which stem cells may in the future prove to be alleviation or cure, you should consider collecting your newborn’s umbilical cord blood stem cells.
Adoption
Anyone in the position of adopting a child may want to consider asking the birth mother to consent since this may be the only genetic link and source of stem cells for the child.
Ethnic Minorities and Mixed Ethnic Minorities
People belonging to ethnic minorities may want to consider private cord blood banking because if the need for stem cells arises in the future, public blood banks may not be able to provide a match for their child.
4. Do I need to save cord blood for all of my children?
This is a personal choice. Cord blood samples are genetically unique. Saving the blood of just one child increases the chance that it would be a match for future children; however, it is certainly not a guarantee. The only way to guarantee a true match and to avoid sample rejection is to bank for each child. Moreover, should a need arise in the future calling for more than a single stem cell transplant for your child, or a stem cell transplant is needed for more than one of your children, having access to preserved cord blood stem cells from all of the family’s children could be of considerable benefit.
5. What are my options for saving my baby’s cord blood?
The two options for donation today are public or private blood banks. Our NeoCells, Inc. subsidiary of ViviCells International, Inc. is a private umbilical cord blood banking company that processes, tests, cryopreserves and stores the cord blood stem cells for specific families and provides access to retrieval of the stem cells if necessary for that particular family. Public blood banks accept stem cell donations; however, the stem cell specimen you donate is no longer owned or controlled by you or your donor child. Ownership of the stem cell specimen is held by the public stem cell bank to be made available for a substantial fee on a matching basis to anyone requesting a matched specimen. As such, the original donor has lost access to his/her personal matched stem cell specimen as it is put into the public mainstream for use by other families.
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