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Leukemia patient given own cord blood
Filed under: Your Pregnancy, Health & Safety: Babies, In The News
A 3-year-old girl got a second chance at life after receiving a stem cell transplant of her own banked stem cells for Leukemia. When the girl, who is now six, was born in 1999, her parents saved some of the cells from her umbilical cord in case she needed them.When she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, she underwent chemotherapy. She went into remission for a bit, but the cancer came back. That's when her parents and doctors decided to use her stem cells in a stem cell transplant.
This was the first time that someone with Leukemia had a transplant of her own "banked" stem cells.
As a parent, I have seen many ads for stem cell banking. Making the decision to bank and save your child's stem cells is a personal one. Saving them can be costly, but how do you put a cost on a life?
I will say, however, that you can always choose to donate your stem cells. Banked cells only have a storage life of about 10 years, so you can't really consider it a lifetime "backup" if you decide to do a private banking instead of donation.
You can read some of the FAQs about stem cell donation here. If you would like to learn more on how to donate your child's stem cells, you can go to the National Marrow Donor Program.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
1-11-2007 @ 2:26PM
Lil Liberal said...It's a shame more hospitals don't have support for cord blood banking (donations). I had to make a choice between donating cord blood, and giving birth at a very restrictive facility with high intervention rates, or giving birth at a less restrictive facility that had a higher rate of natural births- but which sadly didn't have an association to a cord blood donation program. So my Izzy's cord blood was basically tossed out.
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1-11-2007 @ 2:57PM
Jason said...We asked about cord blood banking when our son was born, but it wasn't available at our hospital.
I bet good news like this won't be talked about during the congressional debate on embryonic stem cell research. The fact that cord blood can be used as stem cells should make it unnecessary to destroy human life for research purposes.
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1-11-2007 @ 7:14PM
TwinMom said...I wanted to donate my twins' cord blood but was told that with multiples, there's not enough? In any case, my doctor said that she didn't support the paid cord banking and was hoping that it will soon turn into a public thing (like a blood bank) rather than companies turning a profit on parental fears.
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1-11-2007 @ 9:31PM
Amy said...I planned to donate my daughter's cord blood to Huntington's Disease research, but sadly she was born so fast that I wouldn't let my husband go get the collection kit out of the car, for fear that he'd miss her birth (and I was contracting too much to worry about it when he pulled up to the ER door!).
I plann to donate my next daughter's cord blood to the same research group this time. If anyone would like the name of the organization, please e-mail me at ruannonymous (at) gmail (dot) com, and I will give it to you.
The entire process has been free.
I chose HD research because a good friend of mine is positive for the gene that causes HD, which means that she's going to start developing symptoms eventually. Hopefully there will be a cure by then.
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1-12-2007 @ 9:47AM
Lisa said...It's great that people want to donate cord blood to others, but it certainly shows how the industry plays off the fears of people. A girl actually got to use her own cord blood to save her life -- it's so rare that it's a headline! Yet the industry makes it sounds like this should be among a parents' top worries.
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1-12-2007 @ 2:58PM
Erin said...You can also get stem cells out of your child's lost teeth - according to many studies. There is even a place that offers the service: www.bioeden.com
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2-01-2007 @ 1:58AM
EI said...Seeing as Leukemia is a disease of the BLOOD, getting your own blood is not always as wonderful as it sounds. Cord blood banks pray on fear like this, even if I had banked my daughters blood if would have been useless to her.
My baby girl recieved a UNRELATED cord blood transplant, and it saved her life. The UNRELATED cord blood was donated to a PUBLIC bank - at no cost to the mother. The cord blood of your children would be better donated and placed in a larger bank to the benefit of all. I have witnessed two children die waiting for a match. Shame to think their match was rotting away in a private bank.
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