Concerns and Misconceptions – Cord blood banking

Umbilical cord blood banking is one of the recent discoveries of medical sciences. As recent as it might be, it is considered as very important for the future of the baby as well as for stem cell transplantation. However, because of lack of awareness, there are many misconceptions in the minds of people about the effectiveness, as well as safety of this procedure.

The first misconception about cord blood is that the doctors are never going to use it on the same child, because it will contain the disease. However, this belief is baseless as stem cells are recommended by specialists everywhere to cure diseases such as leukemia, myeloma, lymphoma and even tumors. In fact it offers many advantages especially because of high success rate.

The second common misconception is that a family has very little chances of future use of banked cord blood. This is also a baseless belief, because the advent of cancerous diseases is constantly on the rise, and stem cell therapy is one of the most advanced cures for such diseases. According to research, there are 1 in 400 odds of the baby using the stem cells in future. Not to mention, 1 in 200 chances of a family member using it.

Another misconception is related to family history of cancer. You might not have a history of cancer in your family, but there are certain diseases that can be cured with the stem cells these include autoimmune disorders, anemia etc. In all such cases, cord blood will prove to be an asset to the entire family.

People are also looking to public cord blood banks for stem cell donations in future. This is also a cause of concern, because first of all it’s difficult to get a stem cell donation, and it is also not easy to get a perfect match. So, you might be waiting in vain, because there are years of waiting in most donation cases. Also, the child, his siblings and the immediate family members have a better chance of finding the perfect match in the child’s umbilical cord blood.

Safety of the baby is another concern, which is baseless because the umbilical cord is discarded after it is clamped. So, instead of discarding it, the blood is stored after it is cut, which is not dangerous for the baby, or the mother, in any way.