Stem cell and cord banking has become a popular and common practice for parents of new borns these days. Stem cell and cord banking is a method through which the umbilical cord and stem cells taken from it can be preserved so that they can help treat various types of diseases and illnesses in the baby and his family in the future.
While there are numerous benefits of this method but there are some disadvantages associated with it as well. If you are considering umbilical cord banking, then you must definitely be aware of these disadvantages, some of which have been given as follows.
- One of the major disadvantage of getting stem cells and umbilical cord preserved is that the banked cord blood may not be useful for all kinds of treatments. For example if your child gets sick, then there is no assurance that the banked blood or cells will be of use for that particular sickness.
- If a child develops any kind of a genetic disease then his/her frozen blood may not be able to help him get cured. The cord blood too will have some genetic flaws which have resulted in the disease in the first place and hence it won’t prove to be a good treatment.
- In many cases of illnesses and diseases, introduction of a new set of immune cells from a donor may be more effective than using your own blood and may be able to fight certain types of cancers. This too is a disadvantage of stem cell and cord banking.
- Cord blood can mostly be used in the treatment of children only since the blood or cells taken from the cord are just about 3 to 5 ounces which is not enough to treat an adult and hence this too is a drawback.
- Most blood banks claim that the stem cells taken will be able to help siblings out in case of any diseases but the possibility of this is just about 25% which is not enough in most cases. This is another drawback of stem cell banking.
- There is a high possibility that the stored stem cells and blood may not come to use at all. In this case, the high amount spent to preserve these may just go to waste. While it is true that banking of stem cells and cord blood is a matter of precaution but there is no definite guarantee that it may prove to be of use even once.
- Another major disadvantage related to this method or practice is that it is very expensive and not affordable for most parents. Parenting is already an expensive affair and most families may not be able to invest in something which is still new and comes with little guarantee of curing all kinds of diseases and illnesses. It won’t be wrong to state that stem cell banking is currently limited.
Thus consider all the pros and cons of stem cell and cord banking before taking any decision.
