Introduction To Cord Blood Donation

It is not of general awareness that blood donation is of many kinds. Scientifically, blood is a fluid which also contains plasma and platelets, which can also be donated. Sometimes, whole blood is donated and sometimes, plasma or platelets, whatever is required, is taken and the rest is given back to the donor.

One may not be aware that there is also a kind of donation known as the cord blood donation. The umbilical cord which connects the child to the mother has blood forming cells and it can be very useful life-threatening diseases. Many people also store this blood for private use in future and those who dont, donate it to the cord blood bank, for public use and research which has proved to save many lives.

It has been seen that dangerous conditions like lymphoblastic leukemia (acute), a form of cancer, causing abnormal blood formation and lack of RBC and WBC and platelets, can be fought against by developing a new immune system with double cord blood transplant. There is also another case wherein the victim of neutropenia a rare blood disease wherein the WBC are not produced in the body, was saved with cord blood stem cells. Also developing leukemia, there is practically no immune system without WBC, so it is not wise to take chemotherapy and if the bone-marrow donation does not take place, the only alternative left is cord blood stem cell transplant, which helps in developing a new immune system. But it is important to know, that even this cord blood should be matched with the recipient.

The storage of cord blood is a personal decision, as it can be stored for private use or can be given for public use. As this trend is fast grabbing popularity, they are almost seen as the alternative to bone marrow transplants. It has shown good results on the victims of many diseases like heart attacks, blood disorders, sickle cell anemia, severe cancers, Parkinsons disease, diabetes, Alzheimers and many more.

The procedure of collecting cord blood is by extracting the placenta after childbirth. The whole procedure can amount to maximum 20 minutes and the idea can be abandoned if any complication is encountered during the pregnancy. When the baby is taken out, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut and the fresh blood is collected from the cord and stored in syringes or special packets to be transported to the cord blood bank. This collection of cord blood does not pose any risk for the baby or the mother and also, not all samples are considered worth storing the cord bank, according to the healthcare experts.