Umbilical cord blood donations do not use the mother’s blood, they use the baby’s blood that is left in the umbilical cord after birth. The cord blood is full of stem cells that the scientific community has pounced on.Why? Those stem cells are the basic building blocks of life.

The stem cells collected from donated stems cells are being used to treat people with spinal cord damage and cancers such as leukemia, particularly childhood leukemia. It is hoped that one day they will be able to take stem cells and grow new organs such as a liver or heart. Stem cells taken from a newborn baby are still in their primitive state and can be trained to do specific jobs within the body. For this reason umbilical cord blood donations are important

To collect donated cord blood the nurse or midwife uses a syringe to draw out the blood before the umbilical cord is disposed off. This is better than just throwing the umbilical cord and the umbilical cord blood out. Once collected, the cord blood is sent away to have the stem cells removed for storage.

You have two options for cord blood collection. You can donate the cord blood where it is stored and used for research or treatment. The most common treatment juvenile leukemia where it has a high success rate.

Cord blood stem cells can be stored or ‘banked’ for future use by your family. This can be used to treat siblings as well as the baby itself. Collection is expensive and will cost around $2000 with an annual fee of around $100.

Research is being undertaken to test stem cells and their ability to repair spinal problems and restore movement to para/quadriplegics. More than seventy diseases can be treated using stem cells many of them being cured in the long term. The lack of umbilical cord blood donations is creating problems with one in five hundred births donating cord blood – the remaining four hundred and ninety-nine births are having their cords and the cord blood thrown out.

You can help to increase the amount of cord blood collected by using the service and donating cord blood after your child has been born. Ask the hospital or midwife if they collect cord blood. There are many agencies that will collect the cord blood, either for public cord blood banking, or, for your own personal use at a later time.

The more parents who donate cord blood for research, the more likely science will find cures for diseases such as juvenile diabetes, brain injuries and spinal column injuries. Who would have thought that cord blood stem cells could do so much? Umbilical cord blood donations may be the future of our health.