Cord blood banking generated debates about the consequences of donating against personal storage of umbilical blood. Umbilical cord blood, a “wonder” in scientific and medical research, is found to contain stem cells that are highly valuable in treating blood-related ailments.
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Its “primitiveness” can regenerate entire immune systems necessary for treating chronic diseases like leukemia, anemia, and immune system disorders. Despite its many applications, there are restricted donations made in public banks due to many factors. Lack of equipment, incompetent information dissemination, and financial problems are common factors.
But other than those, the need for parents to save their children’s blood for familial use is a more powerful reason. Most families are choosing to maintain stem cells as “medical insurance” if one of them gets ill with a blood disease. If you’re thinking about your choices, recent studies demonstrate that public storage is more beneficial to the donating family as well as others.
Take note
First, there’s very little possibility that instant members of the donating family can use the donated stem cells. Umbilical cord blood from the sick child himself is unsuitable for his use. The genetic materials that made the disease potential can also be encoded in the cells. The parents also contain strains of these genetic materials which make them unsuitable candidates for the blood’s use.
Besides, stem cells harvested from umbilical blood are usually inadequate to cure persons or adults weighing more than a hundred pounds. Second, should you need umbilical blood, chances are greater that your game is in public shops as opposed to private storage. National Marrow Donor Program’s Dennis Confer affirms that an exact match between a donor’s umbilical blood and his sibling is pegged at just 25 percent, while exact matches from people shops reaches 75%.
He asserts that the latter is greater if internationally-based cord blood banking systems are included. Third, physicians often prefer umbilical blood secured through public banking systems.
Final note
Unlike personal storage, public banks have controlled and rigorous criteria for umbilical cord blood preservation. They have criteria on level, sanitation, and educated, qualified staff. Private storage are only normal businesses – they aim for gain. They may restrict the quantity of chosen samples to make space for more, or employ less than qualified employees to reduce manpower costs.
By maintaining umbilical blood in private shops, its quality is highly at risk. Fourth, donating umbilical blood in public banks doesn’t restrict your access to it unless it had been used. Public and government-regulated cord blood banking institutions give priority to donors if they want their blood. Also, there are quite slim chances that your donated umbilical blood is used.
Lawrence Petz from StemCyte – a leading public/private umbilical blood bank – estimates that only 5 percent of banked contributions are used. Lastly, donating umbilical cord blood is cheaper because it is free. Private banks charge up to $2,000 for registration and collection, and another $100 yearly for storage. That’s lots of cash for something you may not even use. But by donating umbilical blood to cord blood banking associations, you’re providing a chance at life to others without cost on your part. You never know but the life that your donated umbilical blood saves may function as the savior in the long run.