The world’s first umbilical cord blood transplant took place in France in 1988 – a fairly recent occurrence – where a young boy was cured of the life-threatening condition Fanconi anaemia, a hereditary disease that affects the bone marrow. Since then, more than 40,000 cord blood transplants have taken place worldwide which has saved thousands of lives.
What is cord blood?
After birth, the umbilical cord is cut and can be saved due to the small amount of blood still within the cord and the placenta. Whilst this may seem insignificant, this blood contains stem cells.
Umbilical cord blood contains more than a dozen types of stem cells that can grow and develop into a wide range of cell types, including white and red blood cells, platelets, muscle cells, bone cells, fat cells and cartilage.
A number of medical conditions can be treated with these stem cells. In fact, nearly 80 conditions are already being treated with just one type of stem cell found within cord blood.
What is cord blood banking?
As the medical research into cord blood continues, the number of successful treatments is growing and this has led to cord blood stem cell treatment to become a well-known and well-accepted treatment method for those diagnosed with certain conditions.
This means that the number of parents interested in preserving their child’s cord blood has also increased and public institutions have been preserving umbilical cord blood in public cord blood banks now for years.
By 2009, there were more than 400,000 umbilical cord blood samples in storage with more than 100 cord blood banks operating around the world.
Cord blood stem cell research
The research behind this type of treatment is also accelerating at a rapid pace.
A number of breakthroughs have been discovered in the emerging field of regenerative medicine that indicates further potential of these types of cells in the coming years; this could lead to the successful regeneration of heart muscles after a heart attack or nerve cells after paralysis.
Hopeful research has indicated that heart disease, blindness, Alzheimer’s disease, spinal injuries and breast cancer are just some of the conditions that cord blood stem cells may be able to treat in the future.
Cord Blood Info Pack: FREE Guide for Expecting Parents
To help you further understand the significance of cord blood and the importance of cord blood banking, you can download our FREE Cord Blood Infor Pack for Expecting Parents. This guide explains the fundamental concepts associated with umbilical cord banking and aims to answer a number of questions, including:
- What is umbilical cord blood?
- How can it be used to treat various diseases?
- What is umbilical cord banking?
- How does umbilical cord banking work?
- What are your cord blood banking options?
- The Cells4Life stem cell banking services