If you are thinking about cord blood donation you should know that the blood comes from the umbilical cord of the baby and from the placenta. This comes with cells known as the stem cells that could save someone’s life. This can be used to treat different kinds of diseases.
What is giving cord blood away?
We can say that cord blood acts something like bone marrow. It has the possibility to help with different kinds of cancers, metabolic disorders, immune deficiency diseases and inherited illnesses, like sickle cell anemia. The blood can also be used for research             in order to make the future treatments more efficient.
What to know about people who donate cord blood?
If you donate the cord blood of the baby it will be kept in a public blood bank until someone else needs it. You can donate the blood for free. The good news is that it is painless and safe for the baby. This is because it is collected after the birth of the baby and after the doctor cuts the umbilical cord.
There is an entire network that specializes in cord blood donators that take the blood. The majority of the public cord blood banks are non-profit organizations. In the same time all of the banks have to meet the quality standards. The blood has to meet eligibility to be stored.
If the eligibility standards for donating cord blood are met, it is said that the cord blood of the baby is eligible for transplant. The blood will be stored in the bank and it will be listed in the registry of the NMDP. This is a nonprofit organization, which encourages donations.
If you would like to give cord blood away you should know that this is the largest public cord blood bank of the country. This organization made 4,700 transplants possible in the past decade. When the blood gets in the registry, the doctors can assess it for their patients who need stem cell transplants.
It is important to know regarding cord blood donation that the name of the babies and the mothers is confidential so their privacy will be protected. If the cord blood doesn’t meet the requirements, it may be used for future research to make the treatments of the future better.
Why don’t families donate cord blood?
The truth about giving up cord blood is that there are a lot of families that don’t know about the need for it and they don’t know their options either. Another reason is that not all the hospitals in the U. S. offer this option. This is because the number of public cord banks in the country is limited.
Another problem of donating cord blood is that it costs about 1,500 to collect, freeze, test and store one single unit of cord blood. Since the costs are so high and the public funds for such activities are low, the number of organizations and cord blood banks remains limited and low in the country.
