Umbilical Cord Blood Banking

Umbilical cord blood banking provides biological insurance in the event your child becomes ill and requires stem cell treatment. That’s because umbilical cord blood stem cells are a perfect genetic match to your child. And when properly collected from the umbilical cord of your newborn baby at the time of delivery and properly stored at an AABB accredited, FDA-registered cord blood bank, such as LifeLine Cryogenics, umbilical cord blood can often be used years later to treat potentially life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia and heart disease.

Indeed, today stem cell treatments derived from the placenta and umbilical cord blood are being used to fight over 70 diseases, including leukemia, sickle-cell anemia, diabetes, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. And the list of benefits of umbilical cord blood stem cells – and reasons to bank umbilical cord blood – continues to grow.

Because umbilical cord blood (“cord blood” for short) is a perfect genetic match to your baby’s blood, umbilical cord blood stem cells are favored by doctors for treating blood-related diseases, such as leukemia. Many times, umbilical cord blood stem cells can also be used to treat members of the same biological family.

Umbilical cord blood banking is especially recommended for multiethnic families where a genetic match may be more difficult, and babies conceived using an egg and/or sperm donor.

Umbilical cord blood banking is safe and simple. Umbilical cord blood is collected at the time of delivery by the obstetrician, the midwife, or a nurse from the baby’s umbilical cord, after it has been detached. Then the cord blood is sent to the cord blood bank (e.g., LifeLine Cryogenics) where the stem cells will be carefully extracted and placed in deep-freeze storage for future use.

The decision to bank your baby’s umbilical cord blood provides families with more options for treating potentially life-threatening medical conditions – as well as peace of mind.

For additional information on umbilical cord blood and stem cells, visit the following sites (by clicking on the link):
stemcells.nih.gov
www.parentsguidecordblood.org