Cord Blood banking!
This is one of the blessings of medical science that allow you to store your baby’s cord blood stem cells for future use. This is taken from the umbilical cord that connects the baby with the mother when the baby is in her womb.
Previously the umbilical cord used to be thrown away. But the stem cells that are found in the umbilical cord blood have the capability of treating and recovering several life-threatening diseases like cancers.
Due to these very reasons, parents are now opting for cord blood banking.
If you are also thinking about opting for cord blood banking, you should know their types. Here we will guide you with that. Before that, let’s get the basic idea about umbilical cord blood banking.
What Is Cord Blood Banking?
Cord blood banking is the particular process of collecting cord blood along with extracting and cryogenically freezing the stem cells and other essential cells of cord blood for future medical use.
The Types Of Cord Blood Banks
So, now that you get a basic understanding of cord blood banking, it is time to know the different types of cord blood banks. Knowing these types will help you to choose the right one as per your budget and requirements.
Cord blood banks are of two types;
- Private cord blood banks’
- And public cord blood banks.
Here is detailed information about both of them. Let’s start with private cord blood banks.
Private Cord Blood Banks
This type of cord blood banks typically store cord blood only for use by the particular child and their family after a successful pregnancy from a healthy mother. In private cord blood banks, the parents own the cord blood of their child. These banks can provide direct donations or autologous transplants.
Directed donations are nothing but stem cells, which a cord blood bank stores particularly for the donor’s relatives to use in case they have a condition that can be treated with stem cells.
In these types of cases, sometimes a private bank might store the cord blood free of cost.
On the other hand, an autologous procedure uses the individual’s own cord blood stem cells for their own transplant. As per the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for several reasons, teh autologous transplants are rare.
When an individual is being treated for a genetic disease, the person can not use their own stem cells because they have the same genes which have caused the disease. This is one of the reasons why autologous transplants are rare.
Plus, in the case of blood diseases, like leukemia, people also can not use their own cord blood stem cells, as they can not treat the particular individual’s leukemia.
You can store your child’s cord bloodstream cells exclusively for your own use by paying the cost of storing cord blood and stem cells. This way, those cord blood stem cells will only be reserved for your use.
Public Cord Blood Banks
This type of cord blood banks typically collect donated cord blood for the use of almost anyone who is in need of that. The dominated cord blood can also be used for research purposes or discarded. At the same time, public banks also might provide directed donations.
To keep it simple, public banks actually own cord blood donations.
The particular type of transplant that comes from public cord blood banks is an allogeneic transplant. This specific type of transplant utilizes cord blood stem cells in order to treat some conditions in someone else other than the donor of the cord blood.
In comparison to autologous transplants, allogeneic transplants are pretty common. However, in the case of allogeneic transplants, a good match is a must between the person who is receiving and the donor.
Here, a good match means some specific similarities between the cells of both individuals. In case the match is not strong enough, the immune system of the individual who is receiving the transplant might reject the cells. It means the transplant will not work.
When you are donating your cord blood stem cells to public cord blood banks, there is no certainty that you will be able to use that when you need that for your child or close relatives. You have simply donated it.
You might get a match if that is available at that time.
Private vs Public Cord Blood banks
Public cord blood banks are completely free, but there is no certainty that you will get a perfect match for cord blood stem cells when you need it for your child, yourself, or close relatives.
On the other hand, private banks might come with a cost, but they store the cord blood stem cells exclusively for your, only yours future use.