If you’re having a baby, there’s no doubt you have to prepare and decide before the upcoming debut. It’s an exciting time because you have so much to plan for like buying cute clothes and toys, decorating the nursery, picking out a name and celebrating with friends and family. In addition to these fun things, there are also some other important decisions to make about your baby’s health like finding a pediatrician and finalizing your birth plan.
Because there’s so much going on, sometimes finding out the facts about saving your baby’s umbilical cord blood and tissue stem cells is overlooked.
Preparing with Cord Blood and Cord Tissue Banking
If banking your baby’s umbilical cord blood and cord tissue stem cells is not already on your pregnancy to-do list, then you might want to think about adding it. Of course, every parent hopes their baby will have a perfectly healthy future ahead of them, but the future can be unpredictable. In an ideal world, you would know every challenge your baby might face and be able to protect them from it. But, until we are able to harness that superpower, the most we can do for our family is prepare as best we can.
Sometimes expecting parents know they have a family history of certain medical conditions or illnesses that could be passed down to their baby. Knowing this can help them be proactive and make sure they have every resource available from early detection and to prevention. Even for families who don’t have any known health concerns, it’s reassuring to know that certain health resources are available if they’re ever needed.
No parent ever wants to hear that their child is sick, especially if it’s a serious illness, but what if you had access to a resource that could help treat, or even cure, the illness? Your baby’s cord blood and cord tissue stem cells could be that resource.
How Cord Blood and Cord Tissue Stem Cells Can Help
Just as making the decision to prepare for your baby’s future health is a sound one, so is banking their cord blood and cord tissue stem cells. Think about it – if your child were to get a cold, you would bring them to their pediatrician who might prescribe over the counter medications and suggest additional methods like using a humidifier to help with symptoms. What if your child developed a more serious illness, and what if part of their treatment plan included using cord blood and cord tissue stem cells?
The blood and tissue that make up your baby’s umbilical cord are full of stem cells. Cord blood has a special type of stem cell that can change into other blood cells to help treat diseases that harm the blood and immune system and now are being used in clinical studies to treat autism and cerebral palsy.
Then there are cord tissue stem cells. Cord tissue has a different type of stem cell, and they are just as important, especially in regenerative medicine research that’s being done with stem cells. Cord tissue stem cells can help with inflammation and become all types of cells that can’t regenerate into new ones to keep your body healthy like bone cells, cartilage, nerve cells, and muscle cells.
Cord blood stem cells can effectively treat a variety of certain illnesses and conditions. Cord tissue stem cells are still being researched, but they’re showing huge potential to help with conditions like Parkinson’s Disease, sports injuries, Alzheimer’s, lung cancer, and autism. Knowing all the ways cord blood stem cells can be used and how both are being researched in clinical trials for ways to treat more conditions and illnesses is exciting.
Making the decision to bank their baby’s cord blood and cord tissue stem cells has provided a treatment option for thousands of families and provided hundreds of thousands of other families peace of mind knowing these cells are available for their family should these cells ever be called-upon by a physician. So, as you plan for your baby’s arrival, it’s important to make the time to evaluate cord blood and cord tissue banking as part of your birth plan.
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Disclaimer: Banking cord blood does not guarantee that treatment will work, and only a doctor can determine when it can be used. PerkinElmer and ViaCord do not endorse or make recommendations with respect to research, medication, or treatments. All information presented is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.
For references, please visit viacord.com/references.
