Preserving umbilical cord

By Dr. Shobha Gupta

The umbilical cord is a cord between mother and baby that connects a baby in the womb to its mother. It runs from an opening in your baby's stomach to the placenta in the womb. Placenta keeps your unborn baby’s blood supply separate from your own blood supply (mother). This placenta is enables to carry out the functions that the unborn baby cannot perform for itself 

Umbilical cord blood is a baby's blood left in the placenta after the baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut. Usually umbilical cord gets discarded along with the placenta blood as a waste

In the 1970's, medical researchers discovered that human umbilical cord blood contained the same kind of stem cells found in bone marrow. Researchers believed that they could also use stem cells from umbilical cord blood to save patients.

Delivery is the only time that stem cells may be extracted from the umbilical cord, otherwise they are discarded. The blood cells in the umbilical cord contain special stem cells that can be used to treat life-threatening diseases and immune and genetic disorders. 

Unrelated cord blood transplantation is safe and is an acceptable alternative to bone marrow transplantation for many patients. However, it was also found that, as with bone marrow transplants, patients who receive cord blood from siblings or related donors generally have higher survival rates than those who receive cord blood from unrelated donors.

For long-term storage, cells undergo specialized freezing procedures and are stored in special freezers under liquid nitrogen. Maximal storage time, or expiration date, is unknown, but cells are likely to remain usable for decades. Cord blood units from public banks have been successfully transplanted after 18 years in storage.

However, it is always recommendable that preserving umbilical cord is not for everyone. There is a reason behind its preservation. Preserving umbilical cord is only when the baby has a family history of Genetic disorder, metabolic disorder, Leukemia or Hurler syndrome etc. Otherwise this is of no utmost importance that one should preserve umbilical cord.

If someone preserves it for routine use then its sheer wastage of money because the cost of preservation is quite high. The fees vary from registry to registry, but in general, you'll pay an enrollment fee, processing fee and then an annual charge thereafter.