Cord Blood Banking

 

Cord Blood Banking

Cord blood banking is a hot subject in pregnancy circles today. However with all this hype, is there truly an advantage to banking a newly born's cord blood?

While the technology and potential of cord blood banking are really exciting, the facts don't, currently, point to overpowering benefits. Currently, the North American Academy of Pediatrics announces the chance of a baby needing its own stored cells is roughly 1:1000 to 1:200,000. They also make it clear that there's, at this time, no hard evidence that cord blood transplantations that employ a person's own stem cells are way more advantageous than those employing a matching donor's stem cells. When you meet with a personal cord blood bank, they will explain all the charges to you.

There's a preliminary processing fee and a banking fee. On top of that, there's an once a year storage fee. The opening cost for processing the process, for picking up the cord blood and for storing it ranges from about $600 to $1800 for the 1st year.

After that, the annual storage fee is about $100. This is plenty of cash to pay for something that's fundamentally an insurance policy. While saving a kid's life is, naturally, priceless, the study doesn't, at this time, support the concept cord blood banking is more useful in saving a kid's life than are other techniques that are more cost effective.

Regular bone marrow transplants with a matching donor are still a choice, as is finding a cord blood match thru a public cord blood bank. It's critical to realise these options so you don't make a choice based on fear or future regret.

First off, umbilical cord blood stem cells can only be used for transplants in youngsters or teens. Cord blood banking doesn't provide enough stem cells to finish an adult's transplant wishes.

So, the stored stem cells are only useful in the event a kid in the family becomes sick. Research hasn't proved that there are far more advantages to the stem cells taken from a relative than those taken from a not related donor. Although it is nice insurance to understand that those stem cells would be there for your folks, should you want them, the research reveals that you would have as much success receiving stem cells from an unknown donor as you do from a relation. These are some of the main drawbacks currently to storing cord blood. This is a comparatively new field, and the medical profession has only been storing cord blood since the 1970s. Some disagree that it's critical to store cord blood now in the hopes that future research will yield more life-saving purposes for the cord blood. While this is a chance, it isn't always a legitimate enough point for the price of storing cord blood today.