One field of medicine that is being pushed further by medical professionals and scientists in the medical community is the use of cord blood as an alternative for bone marrow transplant. Both cord and the bone marrow have blood–forming stem cells which in turn can be used to reform and treat the diseased blood or a debilitating disease of a patient.
Cord blood is harvested from the blood which is left over in the placenta and in the umbilical cord right after a normal birth of the baby. The method most commonly used would be similar to standard blood collection techniques. The medical technician cannulates the vein of the severed umbilical cord using a needle connected to a blood bag, and the cord blood through the needle into the bag. One might wonder how this small piece of blood sample can change the lives of people. Just recently, medical professionals and scientists were able to uncover the buried magic this piece obtained from the placenta and umbilical cord has. Cord blood not only contains elements of a whole blood but it has also been found to be rich in hematopoietic stem cells.
One important fact to take note of is that cord blood can only be obtained and extracted from a newborn infant’s umbilical cord and placenta, thus the importance of doing the procedure of extraction properly and safely. Collecting cord blood samples is more possible and plausible with normal births since with normal births, the doctors and other medical staff do not have to worry about another ongoing operation which occurs during births through C-Sections. After the collection of these cord blood samples, the next important step would be the safe keeping of such riveting medical pieces. Cord blood can be stored and processed two ways. One is through public cord blood banks and another is through private cord blood banking. Cord blood banks are where cord blood samples are being stored and kept and can only is accessible to the donor or the donor’s immediate family and relatives.
Parents of newborn infants can now choose to have this very special and useful part of the umbilical cord to be saved for future health uses. The fact that this part can be kept and stored is one of the most wonderful characteristics of cord blood. It does not degenerate and lasts years in proper storage. This process of cord blood banking may seem like too commercial, too business like to most but when it comes to health and safety, nothing should matter more.