Original | Pregnancy
Abstract: Does cord blood need to be saved?
Regarding the publicity of cord blood, I believe many mothers have heard:
"Saving a portion of your child's cord blood can cure leukemia....".
"To save a copy of cord blood is to save a copy of life insurance...."..."
"Spend a little money now, save your life later"...
Because of the hype of the merchants, many parents are moved by the storage of cord blood.
The star mother with good conditions even saved the umbilical cord blood for her child without thinking.
Yang Yi, the mother of the second child, saved umbilical cord blood for her son after giving birth to her son, and she said: This is an important gift I prepared for my brother.
Yang Yi revealed that when pregnant with the first baby, as a novice parent, everything is busy and does not understand anything.
By the second pregnancy, she had done her homework in advance and carefully prepared a gift for the baby.
She said: As a parent, the most important thing must be the health of the baby, so before the birth of the second child, I considered storing umbilical cord blood for the child.
"Cord blood can treat many diseases and can protect the health of families and children!"
Whenever I see such news, many parents will sigh: such a powerful cord blood, there are conditions to save a copy for their children!
But is cord blood really that magical? Can key moments really come in handy?
Does cord blood need to be stored? Today the pregnant mother came to talk to you clearly.
Cord blood, there are indeed many mothers who are saving for their babies!
On Weibo, many mothers have stored cord blood for their babies, and their original intention is the same as Yang Yi, to save a healthy guarantee for the baby.
Star moms who store cord blood are also many.
Ran Yingying, the wife of boxing king Zou Shiming, stored cord blood when she gave birth to her second child, and she saved it for her husband.
Because doctors say that boxing athletes like Zou Shiming are prone to Parkinson's disease in their later years, and umbilical cord blood may be able to cure this.
When Cecilia Cheung gave birth to her eldest son Lucas, she also heard that keeping cord blood could save her life in an emergency, so she decided to store cord blood in the cord blood bank.
When Ai Fukuhara gave birth to her daughter, she also stored umbilical cord blood in case she could be used by children in need in the future!
There are also singers Faye Wong, Olympic champion Du Li, French star Henry, Xiao S, Tao Jingying, Wu Yanzu... These star parents also stored the umbilical cord blood of the newborn baby for the first time.
The cord blood that so many people choose must have its use, and the role of cord blood cannot be denied.
But does the cord blood, which is advertised by merchants as a "life bank" and "can cure all diseases", really have such a miraculous effect?
Storing your baby's umbilical cord blood can really cure all diseases?
The so-called cord blood, that is, when the baby is born, the blood left in the umbilical cord and placenta after the umbilical cord is broken and broken, about 100 ml.
In ancient times, cord blood was a rarity for people to be discarded directly.
However, in the past three decades, researchers have found that cord blood contains hematopoietic stem cells that can rebuild the human hematopoietic and immune systems, which can be used for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and the treatment of more than 80 diseases.
A simple science popularization of hematopoietic stem cells.
Hematopoietic stem cells have the ability to self-renew for a long time and the potential to differentiate into various types of mature blood cells, can rebuild the human hematopoietic and immune systems, can be used for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, is currently internationally recognized in the treatment of leukemia, aplastic anemia, severe immunodeficiency and other malignant diseases of important methods and effective measures.
Compared with bone marrow stem cell therapy, cord blood has more advantages: cord blood contains very early stem cells, compared with bone marrow and peripheral blood-derived hematopoietic stem cells, the requirements for matching are low, the incidence of rejection after transplantation is low and the degree is light, and the quality of life after transplantation is higher.
It can be seen from here that cord blood is indeed very precious, and from the perspective of medical value, it is also very necessary to preserve.
However, cord blood is not a cure for all diseases!
The Ministry of Health has issued a document clarifying the scope of indications for cord blood hematopoietic stem cell therapy techniques, including:
Hereditary and congenital diseases: bone marrow failure, hemoglobinopathy, severe immunodeficiency disease, metabolic disease.
Acquired diseases:
●Malignant diseases: acute leukemia, chronic leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, multiple myeloma, malignant lymphoma, and some other malignant tumors.
●Non-malignant diseases: severe aplastic anemia, severe radiation sickness.
It can be seen that the current use rate of cord blood is limited to these rare diseases, and the use space is not large, and it is not the "cure for all diseases" as the outside world says!
If parents want to store cord blood for their babies, this is the first thing to understand!
The value of cord blood should be viewed rationally and not blindly!
Many parents store cord blood for the original purpose of saving a health guarantee for their children.
The most listened to is: now that there are so many leukemias, it is time to prevent and treat leukemia for children!
But the American Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists makes it clear that it is very rare to save yourself with your own cord blood.
That is to say: the probability of storing cord blood for the baby is very low on the baby himself, and the authoritative American Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Association has data showing that the probability of the child being able to use his own cord blood is 0.0005% to 0.04%.
(Image source: American Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)
This is because a large number of clinical data show that some serious diseases (such as leukemia) are often related to heredity, which means that the stem cells in the baby's umbilical cord blood have their own genetic problems.
That is to say, in case the child really has leukemia, the cord blood stored at birth is basically impossible to use for himself, and finally he still has to find healthy stem cells for transplantation!
If the child can't use it, can it be used by other families?
This cannot be denied, if the child's brother and sister clearly need stem cells to treat the disease, saving the child's umbilical cord blood can come in handy.
However, the number of stem cells in umbilical cord blood is very, very limited, and under normal circumstances, it is only enough for babies or children under the age of a few years, and it is not enough for adults.
In other words, even if you have cord blood, the space that can be effectively used in your family is very limited!
Does the cord blood need to be stored? What situations are encouraged to exist?
1. Should cord blood be stored?
The question of whether to store cord blood depends on the specific situation of each family.
If economic conditions permit, it is also possible to buy a guarantee after the birth of the baby, but it is also possible to do a comprehensive understanding and do not blindly listen to the introduction of the merchant.
There are now two kinds of cord blood repositories – public and private.
Private blood bank: a place where you spend money to store cord blood, the cost ranges from 20,000-30,000 yuan, generally stored for 18-20 years, only for the use of the child himself or his family.
Public blood bank: approved by the Ministry of Health of the State to establish a blood bank, used to store unpaid donated cord blood for scientific research and clinical treatment, no cost, public blood bank from the mother's donation, can be used by the whole society.
Some parents may ask: Will cord blood donations to public blood banks be used by others?
Yes, if the matching is successful, it will be used directly, and Ai Fukuhara donates cord blood to a public blood bank for those who need it, because the probability of the stored cord blood eventually being used by the child himself is not high.
For the problem of cord blood being used by others, public blood banks also show that families who have successfully donated cord blood can enjoy preferential matching when they need to undergo hematopoietic stem cell transplantation!
At present, there are 7 legal cord blood banks approved by the mainland, namely Beijing Cord Blood Bank, Tianjin Cord Blood Bank, Shanghai Cord Blood Bank, Zhejiang Provincial Cord Bank, Shandong Provincial Cord Blood Bank, Guangdong Provincial Cord Blood Bank, and Sichuan Provincial Cord Blood Bank.
There are two different ways that parents can choose after considering them.
If you don't know how to choose, you can also consider the advice of authoritative institutions, both recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Donate your child's cord blood to public blood banks.
Because the cord blood that meets the requirements is donated to the public blood bank, if the child needs it, he can not only enjoy the right of priority matching, but also greatly improve the use of cord blood, and save people's lives at critical times.
Simply put, this is a bit like donating blood, the blood donated by yourself will most likely not be used directly to yourself, but you can help others.
2. Encourage the storage of cord blood
The authoritative American Society of Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation has issued a "Guidelines for the Use of Cord Blood", which clearly states the mainstream attitude of the scientific and medical communities:
Encourage and advocate that all people donate cord blood to public cord blood banks whenever possible.
According to studies, the probability of needing their own cord blood within 20 years of a child's birth is extremely low, only 0.04% to 0.0005%, so it is not recommended for healthy families to save private cord blood.
Two conditions encourage private preservation of cord blood:
●If a newborn has siblings with a major illness, a stem cell transplant is required.
●Or one of the newborn's parents has a major illness and requires a stem cell transplant, and genetic testing shows that the infant and the affected parent are matched.
Simply put: healthy families prefer public cord blood banks, and if there are patients in the family who need cord blood, self-storage of cord blood is encouraged!
The last thing to say is that cord blood storage or not storage, how to save, this is a personal will, parents can make decisions according to their own families, do a comprehensive understanding, to do the most correct and appropriate choice!
Reference articles
http://www.nhfpc.gov.cn/yzygj/s3589/201308/9abb826b035342869e8b0d5cc6a818fb.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_blood
https://www.marchofdimes.org/pregnancy/umbilical-cord-blood.aspx
@Health Times @Lilac Mom