If you are pregnant, I would really really encourage you to start this new chapter of your life by doing something noble, beautiful and meaningful. It’s very easy and you have nothing to lose! Inside your miraculous mommy tummy, you are not just carrying your baby - a life to begin, but you are also carrying a gift of life that can potentially be offered to many more kids struggling for life. Your umbilical cord that is usually just trashed!
Your umbilical cord that’s connecting you to the baby carries blood that’s very rich in stem cells. Stem cells are mother cells that have the potential to become any type of cell in the body. One of the main characteristics of stem cells is their ability to self-renew or multiply while maintaining the potential to develop into other types of cells. Stem cells can become cells of the blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles, brain etc. So just imagine the power these cells have! These cells offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including leukemia, macular degeneration, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Further research is being done to use these for organ transplants, to mend a broken heart etc.
Immediately after giving birth, you can extract this cord blood and store it safely at a cord blood bank. If you do not do this, your cord blood is THROWN AWAY!! Can you believe that? Such powerful, life saver resource, just discarded into trash! If you plan in advance (around your second trimester), you can start the process with your local cord blood bank and they will guide you through the simple process.
There are many private cord blood banks where people pay thousands of dollars to save the cord blood to save their own child’s life in future if needed. In most cases, it goes unused. A better option in my opinion is to donate it to PUBLIC cord blood banks, where stem cells are made available publicly, so any matching person in need could use it. That person could very well be your own kid in future! The good part, it is FREE!! You do not pay anything as you are banking it as a donation!
I came to know about this in the third trimester of my pregnancy. It was hard to find an organization that served my location, my hospital. After many days of research, when I did find a local organization just 3 weeks before my due date, I was told that I was too late and that they are too early in this phase. They had just finished paperwork to be able to collect cord blood. I still persuaded them to help me out and they agreed to do their best. On January 18, 2011, the day Nyssa arrived into this world, we were the first couple to donate cord blood with Joanne Pang Foundation in the bay area. The next day there were TV channels in our hospital room,but the best part was the content feeling I had to know that my cord blood was not wasted, that it was finally safe somewhere waiting to save someone’s life!
So if you are pregnant, please try to find a local PUBLIC cord blood bank or an organization that can help you bank the cord blood with a public bank, and get the ball rolling. The sooner you do this, the better. Please share this knowledge to spread awareness. it’s something so easy to do and yet so incredible!
The organization we used is in the bay area, California is called Joanne Pang Foundation. They directly worked with my hospital to arrange for the cord blood collection and arranged for the blood to be shipped to the public bank in Texas. I just filled in the paperwork and connected them with my doctor. It’s that easy! :)
Their website seems down at the moment, but here’s another online pointer to them http://parentsguidecordblood.org/en...
Contact I used: Helen Roy
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