How Your Donation Affects Stem Cell Therapy

Umbilical cord blood is a useful source for transplantation techniques like Stem Sell Therapy. Some other ones are the bone marrow transplant and the peripheral blood transplantations. Cord blood transplant has played a very vital role in eradicating diseases. Patients have been successfully treated with around seventy diseases, that include acute lymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin and non Hidgkin leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, thalassemia. Till date, around five thousand umbilical cord blood transplants have been successfully performed.

The blood that remains when the umbilical cord is separated from the new born infant contains vital components of blood and is a necessity when it comes to treating fatal diseases of the human blood. The blood is said to be high in stem cells.

Donation of umbilical cord blood:

You can donate your Umbilical cord blood of your infant and save the life of a person in dire need of blood. The Umbilical cord earlier was thrown away but now, the blood from the cord is stored in public cord blood banks for the survival of a patient suffering from a life-threatening blood disease. A cord blood transplant has a lot of advantages to offer over the traditional methods of Stem Cell Therapy.

There is no harm involved in the blood donation, only the blood from the cord of the baby is donated. You can also donate the blood for umbilical cord storage in a cord blood bank although this is a personal decision. To find out where you can donate cord blood, visit the list of participating hospitals that help you donate the blood. You can check whether a hospital works with a public Umbilical cord blood storage bank that collects the useful blood.

The process of collection and storage of Umbilical cord blood

• First, the cord is clamped and the blood is collected either before or after the placenta is delivered.
• The blood is then collected in a bag which is sterile and the blood is given a particular identification number for temporary storage.
• Next step is the transportation of the unit of cord blood to a cord blood bank to test, freeze and store it for a long term.
• The cord blood unit is now checked to ensure that the stem cells for transplantation are sufficient. In case of insufficient blood forming stem cells, the unit may be researched in order to improve its transplantation process by scientists.
• The blood is frozen and kept at a very low temperature, usually in liquid nitrogen.
The step of these procedures must not be altered to avoid any risk to the mother and the child.

There are many websites on the internet that assist you in the procedure to collect and store Umbilical cord blood. These contain a list of private cord blood banks which are maintained actively and also a consumer questionnaire to help you regarding the donation.