Hello, I am very happy to answer your question. Umbilical cord blood refers to the blood that exists in the umbilical cord and placenta after the fetus is born and the umbilical cord is ligated and severed. In the past, umbilical cord blood was directly discarded, but medical research in recent decades has shown that umbilical cord blood contains all the components of normal blood, especially extremely rich hematopoietic stem cells, which can be used for transplantation to rebuild the human hematopoietic and immune systems. , to treat a variety of serious illnesses. Therefore, umbilical cord blood is an important source of hematopoietic stem cells and is known as the "life bank" of mankind.
Because umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells are the cells of a person when he is zero years old. Therefore, it has good activity, high purity, low rejection, the best immunity, and the highest degree of transplantation. As humans, we only get one chance to retain the hematopoietic stem cells in our umbilical cord blood, and that's when we are born! Keeping is equivalent to storing a backup of life for your child. Not only is it so simple, the cord blood reserved for the child will also provide protection for relatives!
The matching rate between blood relatives is much higher than that of outsiders. This is one of the reasons why in TV dramas, once a match is encountered, relatives are tested first.
Since there are many benefits to retaining umbilical cord blood, why are so many people still unwilling to retain umbilical cord blood? In fact, more people do it because of the cost-effectiveness. Under normal circumstances, the probability of suffering from a disease that requires the use of hematopoietic stem cells is only one in hundreds of thousands, which means that the chance of being used is very, very small. In domestic clinical applications, umbilical cord blood can be used for only about 40 kinds of diseases. Because it is not a panacea that can cure all diseases, not many people are willing to pay 20,000 yuan to preserve umbilical cord blood.
Whether it is necessary to save it or not is a matter of opinion, so you can weigh it yourself.
I hope my answer can help you!
Speaking of umbilical cord blood, we often see news like this from the media. A child suffered from a serious blood disease. In order to save the child, the parents collected umbilical cord blood for a second child and finally matched it. Success, the child was saved...
So since umbilical cord blood can save lives, should we save umbilical cord blood for the baby after he is born? I can responsibly tell you that you do not need to save cord blood, but I encourage you to donate cord blood.
Umbilical cord blood is the blood that remains in the umbilical cord after the baby's umbilical cord is cut. It contains some hematopoietic stem cells and can be used to treat a variety of diseases through stem cell transplantation. Such as metabolic diseases, blood diseases, and immune diseases.
But although umbilical cord blood is very useful! However, after autologous umbilical cord blood is stored, it may not be used in the future. Because the cause of some blood diseases is chromosomal or genetic abnormalities, if your stem cells already have problems, they will not be used if they are stored.
So there is really no need to spend a lot of money to preserve umbilical cord blood. We also encourage everyone to donate cord blood.
These donated umbilical cord blood will be collected and form a cord blood bank. When a patient needs it, suitable hematopoietic stem cell matching will be found from the bank. In this way, the probability of successful matching will be greatly improved.
And if it is a cord blood bank, the blood can be used as long as the matching is successful. But this is not necessarily the case with autologous preserved cord blood, as it may have to be stored for a long time before it can be used.
The value of long-term preservation of umbilical cord blood has not yet been very clearly verified. You may have stored blood for more than ten years. Although the matching is fine, by that time, the blood may no longer be usable.
So, you can donate your baby’s umbilical cord blood, there is no need to store it at your own expense.
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Some people say that umbilical cord blood can save lives; It is said that umbilical cord blood is worthless, so is it necessary to store umbilical cord blood?
First, let’s take a look at what umbilical cord blood is:
Umbilical cord blood is a small amount of blood that remains in the placenta and umbilical cord after the fetus is delivered and the umbilical cord is ligated. Umbilical cord blood contains a certain amount of hematopoietic stem cells, and transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells can treat 70 kinds of diseases, including leukemia and some malignant tumors.
As a result, the utilization rate of umbilical cord blood is getting higher and higher, and public cord blood banks have been established in various places.
Speaking of which, are you interested in storing umbilical cord blood? Wait, as an ethical doctor, I prefer not to store umbilical cord blood.
First, the probability that the child can use his own umbilical cord blood is very low. The data given by the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation is 0.0005-0.04. Moreover, many diseases are related to genetics, that is, the hematopoietic stem cells in the umbilical cord blood themselves have problems and cannot be used.
Second, whether long-term storage of umbilical cord blood is always effective has not been very definitely verified. Maybe there is nothing wrong with the preserved umbilical cord blood itself, and the matching is successful (the matching of hematopoietic stem cells is not easy compared to other matching.), but it expires because it takes too long, so it means nothing. .
Since umbilical cord blood is indeed useful, but the value for our own use is not very great, why not donate it and use it in time for those who are suffering from diseases and are successfully matched with your newborn baby? Woolen cloth?
Of course, how to deal with umbilical cord blood in the end is a matter for each family. As a doctor, I only make an objective analysis from a medical perspective. Storage of umbilical cord blood is of little significance, and the cost is high. Generally speaking, Families are encouraged to think twice before deciding to stockpile.
Sharing two real experiences, I hope it can help expectant parents who are undecided about this.
I attended a lecture at a stem cell bank: It costs about 15,000 to store both umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord stroma. The storage fee for each is 500 a year, and the remaining money is called the testing fee. One ppt in the lecture was particularly exaggerated. A cute child asked: Dad, have you saved my umbilical cord blood? It simply makes parents who don’t pay the bill feel ashamed! Is it really useful to save umbilical cord blood? There was a report a while ago that a child had leukemia and wanted to use his own umbilical cord blood to treat the disease, but it turned out that it was useless! The tens of thousands of dollars saved were wasted.
I gave birth to our baby in the Midwest of the United States. At that time, as a newbie mother, of course I wanted to give my child the best, so I asked the doctor if we could preserve umbilical cord blood. I believe that the technology of preservation in this area in the United States should be quite mature. . As a result, the doctor came out to talk to me and said he did not recommend it. There is such a cord blood bank technology, but it is not recommended that you do it. Because the probability of using it is almost zero. But you can donate your child's cord blood if you wish. If you donate umbilical cord blood, it is 100% guaranteed that a patient will benefit from it. Of course I was happy when I heard it. It is good to help others. So we agreed to donate the baby's umbilical cord. Well, the donation process is actually very simple. Before delivery, there are some agreements you need to sign. Then people from relevant research centers will come and wait in the delivery room in advance to take blood. And as a pregnant woman, I have to take an extra injection. This injection is a little uncomfortable, but I feel very happy thinking that I can help others. Then the process was very simple. When I was discharged from the hospital, the doctor came over to shake hands with us. I felt like it. He told me over and over again that he was guaranteed to have that kind of blood disease. Patients or other parties who need stem cells will benefit from this. Thank you very much for doing a good deed.
When parents want to store umbilical cord blood. I can understand their feelings, but I will also tell them what my former doctor advised me. The probability of using it is almost zero.
It just doesn't make sense to pay the high fees. I strongly encourage you to donate. Because too many patients with blood diseases and other diseases are waiting for such umbilical cord blood to save their lives.
The storage of umbilical cord blood in a public bank is of great significance, just like the bone marrow transplant bank, or even greater. May provide a source of stem cell transplant therapy for others. It also has meaning for yourself and your family.
For details, please see my analysis and discussion.
I checked pubmed about the benefits of cord blood storage. I have participated below into Chinese. And write the conclusion at the end. We can see data from China. Among 5,120 Chinese mothers, the choice of storing cord blood is related to their education level. Mothers with a master's degree or above receive more information, and their storage willingness is as high as 70%. Mothers with a high school education have a storage willingness of more than 40%.
There are also statistics and surveys from European countries that believe that adequate popular science education is beneficial to cord blood storage, and obtaining information is very important.
In fact, umbilical cord blood can treat many immune and malignant tumor diseases. However, for genetic or gene-related diseases, it is difficult to use your own stem cells for treatment, because the umbilical cord blood stem cell genes carry your own genetic material. .
But in addition to these diseases, umbilical cord blood stem cells can be used for many diseases of their own. The Baidu picture is quoted as follows:
And now it is very convenient to store umbilical cord blood, which can be cut off after the baby is born. The umbilical cord blood taken after the umbilical cord is actually the part of the blood stored in the placenta, and the placenta will soon be separated from the uterine surface. The placenta will be treated as medical waste. If the blood remaining in the placenta is not extracted, it will be quickly removed. It froze and was of no use. Therefore, storing cord blood is harmless to both mother and baby.
However, the time for collecting umbilical cord blood is very short. If you want to retain the umbilical cord blood, you must decide before delivery, otherwise it may be too late to sign and prepare the cord blood bag. The main use of cord blood is the stem cells of cord blood. Stem cells have the function of continuous division and proliferation, as well as differentiation.
Therefore, the diagnosis and treatment of the above diseases are also gradually carried out. In view of the fact that it is also a guarantee for the family, those with financial conditions can store it, and newborn insurance will be given as a gift; if the financial conditions are average, we can donate it to a public umbilical cord blood bank free of charge, which will not harm the mother and baby, and can also be used A good deed will be given to others in need in the future. If you are unfortunate enough to need umbilical cord blood stem cell treatment in the future, if you donate umbilical cord blood, you can also give priority to the successfully matched umbilical cord blood in the bank.
From a macro perspective, the storage and use of newborn umbilical cord blood is of great significance to the development of medicine and the treatment of patients. Because the umbilical cord blood of newborns contains stem cells that can be induced to function in various tissues and organs throughout the body - umbilical cord blood stem cells.
The induction and treatment of umbilical cord blood stem cells has become an important treatment method for a variety of blood system diseases (such as leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, etc.), immune deficiency diseases and metabolic diseases. .
What most pregnant women need to know is that if your family members or previous children already suffer from the above diseases, then stored cord blood can be used to treat the diseases of these family members or previous children, and There have been many reports of successful treatments. The world's first umbilical cord blood transplant used the umbilical cord blood of the patient's sister.
In summary, we should establish the correct purpose of storing umbilical cord blood for newborns. Its main significance is not to treat the newborn’s future diseases, but to treat other people in need. .
References:
ACOG Committee Opinion No. 648: Umbilical Cord Blood Banking[J]. Obstetrics and gynecology, 2015, 126(6): e127-129.
Umbilical cord blood is the blood remaining in the placenta and umbilical cord after the fetus is delivered and the umbilical cord is ligated and severed.
According to research over the past decade, umbilical cord blood contains hematopoietic stem cells, which can be used for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to treat dozens of diseases.
Therefore, the cord blood bank will recommend that expectant fathers and mothers sign up to save cord blood for their children, thereby "backing up life." But do newborns need to store umbilical cord blood? We should look at this matter rationally from several aspects.
First of all, saved cord blood is like buying insurance. No one wants to get sick. If you buy insurance, you will be protected if you get sick. Similarly, no one wants to use cord blood, because it means that the child may have a blood disease. If suitable cord blood is available, the treatment will be relatively optimistic. However, the fact is that the probability of using preserved autologous cord blood is roughly between 1:2400 (0.04) and 1:200000 (0.0005). Spending tens of thousands of yuan to buy such a low-probability guarantee is not cost-effective in my opinion. Of course, if there is no financial pressure, it is also possible to preserve cord blood.
Secondly, because some diseases are related to genetics, that is, there are problems with genes. Since the baby suffers from certain diseases, it means that there may be problems with the genes of the umbilical cord blood stored in the baby. Therefore, if you really have a blood disease, it is more likely to find other healthy cord blood that is a suitable match. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not recommend using umbilical cord blood as "life insurance" to prevent disease, and the American Academy of Pediatrics also believes that the role of umbilical cord blood requires further research. This all shows that umbilical cord blood has a certain role, but it cannot elevate it to a "backup life" level. In other words, you can save cord blood, but you must fully realize that this is not a foolproof solution, and there is no guarantee that the preserved cord blood will be used when your child becomes sick in the future.
Since the probability of children using it themselves is very low, I think it is better to promote the public welfare attribute of cord blood banks, that is, to encourage donations, a model similar to voluntary blood donation. Donors have priority for matching when needed and can prioritize the use of resources in the cord blood bank. Although doing so will greatly reduce the "income" of the cord blood bank, it may increase the amount of donations to the cord blood bank, thereby benefiting more potential patients. If it is promoted in this way and someone encourages you to save it on your own, I think it is more likely that they want to make money from you.
Hello, I am happy to answer your question
Personally, I think it is not recommended for ordinary people to store umbilical cord blood. The storage time of first cord blood is about 15 years. If it is more than 15 years old, the umbilical cord blood may lose activity
Secondly, some people have lurking bacteria and viruses in their bodies, so there will also be bacteria and viruses in the umbilical cord blood
Thirdly, the umbilical cord The price of blood storage is relatively expensive, and many people cannot afford it.
Fourth, the probability of using umbilical cord blood is relatively low. Unless it is a serious illness, there is not much use.
So for For our ordinary families, there is no need to store umbilical cord blood and bear the high cost
After the newborn baby is born, we press the child's footprints and handprints as a souvenir. I hope it can be helpful for your reference
As a family member of a doctor, I have discussed this issue with many doctors in my family, and the answers I got are all - no! need! want!
There are three reasons in simple terms:
1. The gene itself may be defective;
2. The number of umbilical cord blood stem cells is insufficient;
3. Expansion technology causes stem cell quality problems.
Let’s look at the first one first. Cord blood preservation claims to be able to treat malignant diseases through autologous cord blood transplantation when children suffer from malignant diseases. From a medical point of view, it is an attempt to achieve therapeutic effects through stem cell transplantation from umbilical cord blood. But it is not difficult to find from the incidence pattern that if the disease occurs when the child is young, such as leukemia, malignant tumors, etc., then the disease is often congenital and usually caused by genetic defects. In this case, the stem cells in the umbilical cord blood themselves have this genetic defect.
So, can transplanting stem cells that already have genetic defects into children who already have problems solve the problem? A discerning person can easily get the answer.
Some people may say that if you suffer from non-congenital diseases when you are older, such as blood system diseases caused by viruses, radiation, etc., can you treat them through umbilical cord blood? Can stem cell transplantation solve the problem?
The answer is also no.
Although the matching of umbilical cord blood will not fail, for children over 3 years old, the blood volume of one umbilical cord blood is no longer enough for one person.
Let’s look at the specific data. The umbilical cord blood that can exist when a baby is born is about 50 ml, and the effective number of nucleated cells in it is about 300 million. During the transplantation process, at least 30 million nucleated cells are needed per kilogram of body weight, and the more the better; then 50 ml of umbilical cord blood is enough for transplantation of a 10-kg child at most. Generally speaking, the weight of a child around 3 years old has reached about 15 kilograms, and one umbilical cord blood is not enough at this time.
In other words, if you save a copy of umbilical cord blood, even if the quality is good enough and the quantity is large enough, it will only be used until you are 3 or 4 years old at most. This is much shorter than the time promoted by relevant commercial organizations.
Of course, stem cell expansion technology has also been developing. That is, there is a theoretical possibility of "replicating" with font's stem cells to increase the available stem cells in the cord blood. However, stem cells cannot replicate indefinitely. Many stem cells will gradually lose their original differentiation ability during the expansion process, and then they will be useless.
In short, from the current public literature at home and abroad, there is still a lack of cases of successfully treating diseases by extracting stem cells from a large amount of umbilical cord blood. The American Academy of Pediatrics officially stated that there are still many scientific and technical problems that have not yet been solved in preserving umbilical cord blood for treating diseases, so the effectiveness needs to be further verified.
However, technology is developing rapidly. If you are not short of money, or are willing to donate your umbilical cord blood to a public cord blood bank for free, it is a good choice.
Big celebrities such as Xiao S, Cecilia Cheung, Tao Jingying, and Daniel Wu all chose to store umbilical cord blood for their children after giving birth. The topic of cord blood storage became very hot for a while, and it can also be found on Baidu. There are many advertisements for storing umbilical cord blood, and it is expensive. Some media even advocated the act of storing umbilical cord blood as the most valuable life insurance.
Does umbilical cord blood need to be stored for newborns? Umbilical cord blood can successfully cure a large number of genetic diseases, blood diseases and childhood cancer diseases, such as leukemia and immune system diseases. Some parents choose to store their child's cord blood for future use.
However, there are currently no scientific and accurate statistics indicating how likely it is that a child will need his or her own cord blood in the future. In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages the storage of private cord blood banks. (i.e. storing newborn cord blood only for future personal or family use). However, the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages everyone to store newborn cord blood that they would otherwise throw away in public cord blood banks to help all those in need. But if a child develops leukemia, the umbilical cord blood donated at birth cannot be used as a source of stem cells. In fact, I think that storing umbilical cord blood may just give new parents a sense of comfort. Although I don’t know whether it will work and may not be able to use it, some families with better economic conditions are still willing to give it a try.
Of course, as to whether you need to store umbilical cord blood stem cells, you need to discuss and decide with your obstetrician and family before the child is born, so as not to put additional mental burden on yourself during delivery.
Author: He Yun, registered nutrition technician, contracted lecturer of Liaoning Nutritionist Office.