Valentine’s Special on Cord Blood!
A friend forwarded this email to me recently:
Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a gift voucher for cord blood banking!
The storage of cord blood (blood collected from the umbilical cord of a newborn) is something I admittedly don’t know all that much about. I do know that cord blood is rich with hematopoietic stem cells that have the unique ability to differentiate into several kinds of mature blood cell types. This makes it particularly useful as a donor source for the treatment of various childhood diseases, including a few genetic diseases. Parents can choose to donate their child’s cord blood to a public registry (set up for the benefit of the general public) or pay to store it through a private registry, like the one featured above.
In looking at the 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement, it seems that the medical community is not particularly enamored with private registries. They recommend that “cord blood-banking registries recruitement practices should be developed with an awareness of the possible emotional vulnerability of pregnant women and their family and friends.” I wonder if this includes boyfriends and husbands who are scrambling to find a last-minute valentine’s day gift idea?
