Donate Umbilical Cord Blood - the third way to donate stem cells

[Grendel]

I know the target audience is small (women hackers / girl friends (wait... hackers have girl friends?) and wives) out of this crowd, but I thought the concept of donating umbilical cord blood was pretty cool. Here is some more information:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Donate_Co...ood/index.html

Q: What is an umbilical cord blood unit? And how is it used in transplants?

A: A cord blood unit is the term used for the blood collected from the umbilical cord and placenta after a baby is born. Cord blood is rich in blood-forming cells that can be used in transplants for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and many other life-threatening diseases. Cord blood is one of three sources of cells used in transplant; the other two are bone marrow and peripheral (circulating) blood (also called peripheral blood stem cell or PBSC transplants).

[jjarmoc]

Re: Donate Umbilical Cord Blood - the third way to donate stem cells

I know the target audience is small (women hackers / girl friends (wait... hackers have girl friends?) and wives) out of this crowd, but I thought the concept of donating umbilical cord blood was pretty cool. Here is some more information:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Donate_Co...ood/index.html

Q: What is an umbilical cord blood unit? And how is it used in transplants?

A: A cord blood unit is the term used for the blood collected from the umbilical cord and placenta after a baby is born. Cord blood is rich in blood-forming cells that can be used in transplants for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and many other life-threatening diseases. Cord blood is one of three sources of cells used in transplant; the other two are bone marrow and peripheral (circulating) blood (also called peripheral blood stem cell or PBSC transplants).

From my experience when my daughter was born, most public cord blood banks in our area (Chicago) were full. It seems that funds are tight among the public banks. We literally couldn't give it away.

There's many private banks if you want to store the blood for your own child's benefit, but they charge quite a bit of money.