With every passing day, more and more parents, are including cord blood banking in their birth plan. After all, the stem cells from the baby’s umbilical cord, have the power to save lives. But parents only have a vague notion about the current uses of umbilical cord blood stem cells and what the future has in store for it.
Read this engaging article to understand all about it:
Know the Basics of Cord Blood
The umbilical cord acts as a “string of life”, between the mother and the baby, during pregnancy, and connects with the placenta. While the baby is snuggled up inside the womb, it gets its all-necessary blood or oxygen and nutrition, from the placenta through the cord. Earlier, this cord used to be treated as a medical waste. However, with the advent of stem therapy, cord blood banking has gradually made its appearance. Moreover, the reason why new - born cord blood banking has gained such a huge momentum is that, this blood is extremely rich with haematopoietic stem cells. And haematopoietic stem cells, are cells, which have the ability to develop and multiply into different blood cells like Red Blood Cells (RBCs), White Blood Cells (WBCs), plasma and platelets, thus replacing and repairing the damaged cells within the body. In fact, this quality in the haematopoietic stem cells makes it an ideal choice not only for the use regenerative medicines, but also for transplantation purpose.
Cord Blood Stem Cells For Transplantation
Way back, in 1988, Fanconi Anaemia, was treated with the use of cord blood stem cells, and till date this has been considered as the first successful stem cell transplant. But that’s not all. Cord blood stem cells have proven instrumental in treating over 80 life-threatening diseases and disorders. Some of them include:
Cancers
A disease, which is characterized by the production of abnormally elevated numbers of blood cells that do not function properly and often suppress the production of normal blood cell, can surely be treated with steroids, chemotherapy or bone marrow transplantation. However, umbilical cord blood stem therapy is considered to be the best treatment for cancer.
Blood-related Disorders
They include anaemia of different kinds. And, in this kind of disorder, there are deficiencies or malformations of red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the various parts of the body. Umbilical cord blood derived haematopoietic stem cells have emerged as the most able and successful alternative to bone marrow and peripheral blood-derived haematopoietic stem cells transplantation.
Deficiencies in the Bone Marrow
In this condition, the bone marrow doesn’t produce enough blood cells to replenish blood. Although this syndrome can be treated with transfusion of blood, however stem cell therapy via umbilical cord is considered the best alternative for Bone-marrow failure syndrome or deficiencies in the Bone Marrow.
Immune-system Disorders
For instance, diabetes and for a diabetic patient, controlling their blood sugar levels is one of the most challenging tasks. While some do it with diet and exercise, others require insulin injections. On the other hand, several researchers are studying stem cell therapy as an alternative treatment for diabetes.
This besides, there inherited disorders like osteoporosis which is cord blood stem cell treatable.
What Does the Future Hold for Cord Blood?
Well! Studies might be at a preliminary stage, but cord blood stem cells might be able to treat:
Autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes and lupus,
Neurological conditional like cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, etc.
To Conclude
Therefore, in a family, if there is a history of diseases, then it is likely that, the baby’s cord blood can be used for treatment. However, the choice of donating or storing the cord blood is absolutely upon the parents. As the possibilities of cord blood continue to expand.
