Life Changing Decisions
Scott Leshin offers parental advice about cord blood banking
Of the many unique things that happen when you are expecting a child, one phenomenon is particularly unusual: people love to give you advice. Family, friends, co-workers, even strangers suddenly offer expecting parents bits of 'wisdom' that sometimes seem, frankly, a little bit nuts.
Fortunately for Scott and Carrie Leshin, amidst so much of the well-intentioned advice, one tip given to them early on in the pregnancy sounded particularly rational. Scott's sister, who has two young children of her own, said, "I banked my baby's cord blood with Viacord—you should look into it."
Still early in their first trimester, the Leshins agreed. "We talked to our OB/GYN," explains Scott, "we talked to family. Everyone was for it—there seemed to be no downside. So we said 'let's just do it.'"
The Leshins wouldn't learn for more than two years how important their decision was.
A young family faces tough challenges
Months after the Leshins decided to bank their baby's cord blood with ViaCord, they gave birth to a beautiful son, Samuel. But they quickly learned that Sam may have suffered a stroke in utero, which caused lesions on his brain stem. The diagnosis was Cerebral Palsy (CP), a chronic condition that affects body movement and muscle coordination. Sam was particularly affected because, as Scott admits, "having lesions on your brain stem is about the worst place to get them because everything traveling to and from the brain travels through the stem." For Sam, even internal functioning such as swallowing was compromised, so he uses a feeding tube to aid digestion.
For two years, the Leshins were immersed in caring for their son. While Scott did extensive research around Cerebral Palsy, he never saw any research connecting cord blood stem cell therapy as a treatment for CP.
A connection leads to progress and hope
The Leshins only made the connection of using cord blood stem cell therapy to treat CP after learning of a family that had recent success participating in a current trial for CP. From there, the Leshins contacted ViaCord and spoke with Kate Falcon, ViaCord's clinical manager who coordinates cord blood units for transplantation. She contacted the doctor who oversees the cord blood clinical trial for CP, and within weeks, Sam was accepted into the trial.
Seeing is believing—the power of cord blood stem cells
"Our local doctors didn't want us to get our hopes up about the trial because they said it sounded a bit like science fiction," admits Scott. "But now, these same doctors are so impressed."
Just four months after the infusion of Sam's own cord blood, Scott says he is "pulling himself up to a standing position when he wasn't even sitting before. His digestion is getting better, his eye contact is better, he is smiling all the time—and he's more rough and tumble like how a two-year old boy should be! He's doing unbelievable things."
Because Sam participated in an early clinical study using cord blood stem cells to treat CP, there are still so many unknowns. But as an experienced father, Scott is ready to dish out some advice of his own to expecting parents. "From our perspective, this thing we did changed my son's life, and I am so thankful we did it. You can never know what the future holds. And odds are that when you bank your baby's cord blood, you will never need it. But if you do, it's nice to know it's there."
*Although the potential use of umbilical cord blood is expanding rapidly, the odds that a family without a defined risk will need to use their child's umbilical cord blood are low. There is no guarantee that the umbilical cord blood will be a match for a family member or will provide a cure. As with any transplant therapy, therapeutic success depends upon many factors beyond the stem cells themselves, including patient condition, type of disease, recipient-donor relationship and matching, and other factors.