
The process of finding a donor takes months, and extracting bone marrow for transplants is a tedious process for the doctor, and can be a painful experience for the donor. Today, however, exists a form of donating valuable stem cells that is painless, time efficient and highly effective – umbilical cord blood donation.
What is in umbilical cord blood?
Umbilical cord blood contains huge amounts of hematopoietic stem cells. Stem cells, in general, by manipulating them, can develop into almost any type of cell. This ability proves useful in medical treatments and especially procedures involving transplants.
Hematopoietic stem cells are special in a way that they can develop into one of the three types of blood cells – erythrocytes, leukocytes, or thrombocytes (red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, respectively). By growing these stem cells into a certain blood cell, they can be used to treat blood disorders such as sickle-cell anemia, leukemia and many others as well.
Other uses of stem cells involve treatments for various brain disorders, Krabb’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and in the near future, hopefully, Alzheimer’s disease.
A Painless Donation
While the usual method of getting bone marrow (which is a prime source of stem cells) involves months of finding and testing the suitable donor and finally harvesting the bone marrow, harvesting umbilical cord blood for future use takes only a few minutes, and poses minimal risk to the parties involved.
Harvesting umbilical cord blood starts a few moments during a child’s birth, before the umbilical cord is cut. Once harvested, the blood is then stored and shipped to a collection facility to separate valuable stem cells from the other blood components. It is then cryogenically stored for future use.
Life Saving Miracle
11 years ago, a 33-year old man settled to the United States from Uganda to study. He is also carrying a disease, chronic myelogenous leukemia, curable only by cell transplant. Being an African, finding a suitable match in the United States is unlikely (a Caucasian’s chance is already slim as it is).
However, thanks to a baby girl whose mother opted to donate her baby’s umbilical cord blood, this man’s life was saved after a transplant of the baby’s cells, who, luckily, was a perfect match.
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