Cord blood is that blood that remains in the placenta and the umbilical cord post-delivery. Doctors carry out the maternal-fetal transfer of cells to boost the immune system of both baby and mother preparation for labor. At the time of delivery, cord blood is a rich source of stem cells, and other cells help boost the immune system’s cells. The process of collecting cord blood, extracting, and cryogenically freezing the stem cells so that you can use it in the future for boosting the immune system is known as cord blood banking.

Cord blood banking is inter-related to cord blood; it is a catch used for various cells stored. Some parents look surprised when they know that stored cord blood contains a little amount of what we know as blood, and the red blood cells can be a detrimental factor for treating cord blood.

In Europe and various parts of the world, they often refer to cord blood banking as stem cell banking. Banking cord blood is designed in such a manner so that they can collect more blood-forming stem cells, not actual blood cells; this will be the more appropriate term.

Before the 1990s, people considered the umbilical cord and its blood a medical waste because people were unaware of its benefits. Nowadays, parents are trying their best to store a baby’s umbilical cord blood so that stem cells can be utilized shortly and show promise in the ongoing treatment for debilitating and life-threatening diseases.

Fortunately for expectant parents, cord blood is collected at the baby’s birth with the umbilical cord’s help, and no harm is done to the baby or baby. That’s why pregnancy is the actual time for planning to collect the baby’s cord blood and banking it.

How Cord Blood Is Useful In Treatment:

Cord blood has now got the approval for treating nearly 80 diseases of the blood and immune system. Cord blood does contain a massive amount of immune system cells and stem cells; even medical uses expand rapidly. These cells help the body to do the regeneration of tissues and systems, and it is often referred to as regenerative medicine.

FDA has approved cord blood for the treatment of nearly 80 diseases. The treatments of cord blood are being performed more than 35,000 times around the globe for treating cancers (including leukemia and lymphoma), inherited metabolic disorders, anemias, even for some solid tumors, and orthopedic repair as well. Researchers have started exploring that it can cross blood-brain barriers and even reduce inflammation. It can be used as an instrument for treating conditions that are untreatable to some extent.

What Cord Blood Banking Do:

Families with a history of certain diseases usually have private cord blood banking for being on the safe side. Especially these families are the ones who may develop conditions like leukemia and certain cancers that harm the blood and immune system. Why? The type of stem cells present in the cord can help treat such diseases with blood cells’ help, formed in such cords.

Benefits For The Entire Family:

Our immune system is designed to believe that it should get rid of the things that are outside contaminants; the experts can’t transfuse the cells like stem cells and other cells easily. The immune system can even start attacking the patient’s own body mistakenly when experts perform a transfusion.

To prevent graft-versus-host disease and ensure to help engraftment, stem cells are being transfused for matching cells of patients who have completed or to a certain degree (depending upon what has to be treated). Cord blood is taken from the baby’s umbilical cord, always acting as a perfect match for the baby.