Cord blood banking – any views?
With the baby in about 2 months time, there’s a lot to be prepared and to be considered as well. Most of the basic baby necessities have been bought. For now, it’s to consider about other things besides the clothings and the necessities.
Cord blood banking is one of the things to consider. I read up multiple sources on the Internet about cord blood banking. Basically, it’s the blood taken from the baby’s umbilical cord right after birth, and it’s rich in stem cells which could be used to treat many diseases. While there’s still many researches going on around stem cells treatment, many companies have been going around asking the potential parents to keep the babies cord blood privately with them.
Many articles on the Internet (written mainly by those in the USA) recommends and all for cord blood banking, but most (if not all) are not really in favour of the private cord blood banking. All are supportive of public cord blood banks (with the view of the medical technology enhancements), and views the private ones as mere marketing gimmick to induce fear among parents as donors (read: babies) don’t really get to use their own cord blood, but rather mostly being used by the siblings.
Personally, both my wife and I don’t have any serious medical conditions that may require the need of the stem cell transplant (at least, that’s what we know of for now). Personally, i see that there’s future for stem cell researches being able to treat more serious illness and diseases. Question is – should i keep my baby’s cord blood privately, or donate it to the national public cord blood bank? There’s none in Penang, and i’m not sure if the General Hospital in KL (where the Malaysia public cord blood bank is located) will fly over to Penang to collect it.
Decisions… decisions. I thought learning about gps tracking was already hard enough. Hmm….
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 11:32 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
ashotiwoth July 18th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
kev – we somehow already made up our mind. we’d donate the cord blood to the public cord blood bank if they are willing to fly over to Penang to collect it – our Malaysia Public Cord Blood Bank is in General Hospital KL. will consult the doctor further, but mostly, we won’t go for the private cord blood banking liao.
just getting the views from the people who have gone thru and done this only for now….