How Can Storing Cord Blood Help my Baby in the Future?

By : Admin

Collecting and storing your baby's cord blood provides a great number of potential benefits for your baby and your family in the future. Because cord blood contains stem cells, which are the basic components of our blood as well as the foundational components of our immune system, cord blood is an extremely useful thing to have. Cord blood can be made to reproduce into red blood cells to carry oxygen through the body, white blood cells to fight off infection, or platelets, which help with blood clotting.

One of the situations that your baby may be in in the future with which storing cord blood may be able to help is with certain types of cancer. Right now, many types of cancer are often treated with chemotherapy or with radiation therapy. Often, these treatments negatively impact bone marrow and stem cells. By transplanting cells from cord blood back into the body, you can guarantee that these cells will be a match to your baby's body. Having these cells available means that you can avoid the long and all too often painful process that is involved in finding a match of public cells. In addition, for more than two thirds of patients, there are no donors that are a match to them in the public system.

In some cases, the stem cells from your baby's cord blood may help your family in the future as well. Your baby's cord blood is very likely to match up with other close relatives, providing a potential source of stem cells for younger or older siblings, as well.

As stem cell research continues to advance, there are other areas that storing your baby's cord blood may be able to help her in the future. Some of the areas that researchers are making progress in include heart disease, immune disorders, nerve or tissue regeneration, and even arthritis. While there is no guarantee that stem cells will cure any of these ailments, they may very well at least be able to be a part of treatment.

Each pregnancy, expectant mother, and unborn child is different. Your pregnancy may not progress the same as the information found here. The information here is based on the average pregnancy. It's not meant to be a replacement for any advice your may receive from your doctor. If you have any concerns about your pregnancy, we advise you to contact your doctor.