We have several baby, fitness and parenting magazines in our house and I can always tell when Ryan has been flipping through one and usually which one he's been looking at. Every once in a while he'll start conversations with me from out of the blue and will be very factual about what he's discussing. It'll take me a moment to switch gears from what I was doing before he started our new dialog, but I catch up with him eventually.
Today, the impromptu topic was cord blood. He wanted to know how much I knew about it. When I told him I didn't know very much, he said he'd read an article about it and we might want to think about saving La Bean's. The one thing I do know about cord blood is that whole process is pretty expensive. He agreed that it was but according to the article, we'll spend more money on diapers than saving cord blood. So now I have a project.
I told him I'd do so more research about it and see what all I can find out. I'd love to hear from anyone who's thought about it or has saved their baby's cord blood. Or if anyone has an opinion one way or the other that'd be great to hear too. The more information I can get the better. I know there are a ton of websites out there so I've got my work cut out for me. After I whittle everything down, I'll report my findings.
Just an FYI... I've gotten a few WHAT THE HECK IS CORD BLOOD??? SOUNDS GROSS emails. This is from Wikipedia about cord blood and it's importance...
Umbilical cord blood is human blood from the placenta and umbilical cord, collected after the cord has been detached from the newborn baby. Cord blood is utilized as a source of stem cells for transplantation, being rich in hematopoietic stem cells.
Cord blood stem cells have been used to treat over 80 diseases to date, including leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and sickle cell anemia. Over 8,000 cord blood stem cell transplants have been performed to date.3 Placental stem cells may be used in conjunction with cord blood stem cells to improve engraftment potential via an increased number of stem cells and CD34+ stem cells.
Cord blood stem cells are more proliferate and have a higher chance of matching family members than stem cells from bone marrow. Parents and siblings match 50% of the genetic markers of the donor's stem cell. However, since many different genetic markers are required for a match, the probability of a potential implant in a parent or sibling is considerably lower.
3 comments:
Dana- we look into cord blood banking too, but it was way to expensive for us to afford, not only for the initial procedure, but for storage - we just don't have the cash to pay money every 3 months (most companies require this). Even with Owen's condition, there is nothing cord blood could have done for him anyway, so at this point we don't regret it. However, if you have the cash, it seems like a great thing to have just in case.
P.S. I haven't been to the zoo yet....I think Owen is still too young to enjoy it, but we do LOVE to walk around Cherokee park if you ever want to go.
Cord blood? I need more info, sounds yucky!
Aunt e
keep us posted on what you find out. of course, we're available for whatever our little grandbabies need. love yall lots and lots!! going to get more pink stuff today!!
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