UMBILICAL CORD BLOOD BANKING

Today is my little one’s first birthday. He is now a year old boy. Thanks God, You believe me to keep on him. He is the greatest blessing in my life. I still remember how hard delivery process a year ago. I got early rupture amniotic fluids. Very lucky my baby birth 4 hours after. So I don’t need to take an induction. That will be more hurt.
I named him Gilar. It is same with city’s motto where he was born. In Javanese language Gilar means sparkling and shiny. I wish he could be shine and spark everywhere he stands.
I remember, that time my mom busy to keep his umbilical cord. Ya, in the Javanese culture, it is believed that the umbilical cord is sibling of the respective baby. That’s why parents often burry their babies’ umbilical cords and placentas, and build fences or lamps around it for protection. Actually I’m not mythical follower. But that is tradition. I choose to follow it rather than have friction with other family member.
Today I have strong reason to say that the tradition was wrong. Rather than considering it as a waste material or some traditional practices to abide by, we can treat as a valuable material to be preserved because cord blood contains precious stem cells, which will help our children fight against different forms of diseases and illnesses later in their lives.
Stem cells are types of cells which have ability of continuous regeneration and, at the same time, differentiation into various cells types. Research show there are approximately 80 diseases that can healed by cord blood transplant alone.
Unlike bone marrow extraction, cord blood stem cells are non –invasive and painless collection procedures. Of course we don’t need an anesthesia to take. It has less risk of introducing Graft-vs-Host disease and able to tolerate 1-2 mismatches of HLA genes between donor and recipient during transplantation. Those are the advantages of cord blood stem cells advantages.
How to store it? Umbilical cord blood is collected directly on the spot during child labor. Then, the cord blood unit is brought to the laboratory to be processed and stored cryogenically inside the liquid nitrogen vapor ( with temperature around -196 ◦C).
In the laboratory the further process will be done. If clients wants to use the cord blood to cure their disease, it can be taken out and transported to the facility where transplantation
will be performed.

Picture taken from: www.solarnavigator.com