Uncertainties of Cord Blood Banking
As with any medical procedure, there are decided benefits and risks of cord blood banking . Before you consider whether cord blood banking is worthwhile or not, it is important to be informed on its associated risks and potential benefits. This article will talk about the uncertainties of cord blood banking and stem cell therapy.
Risks while banking cord blood
There really are no risks to either the mother or the child when extracting, storing, and even resuscitating umbilical cord blood. In the past, the placental tissue and the entire umbilical cord were simply discarded. This created no risk to mother, child or anyone the placenta had come in contact with, unless the mother had an infectious disease like HIV or Hepatitis. These days, mothers who want to donate umbilical cord blood are tested for the presence of these diseases, so the possibility of becoming infected as a result of cord blood transfusion is limited. The actual storage of cord blood does not pose any health risks either. Indeed, there are many people who work with cord blood on a daily basis and none of them have ever shown any ill effects in doing so.
Dangers of stem cell therapy
It is important to first understand the kinds of stem cells that can be harvested in order to gain a better understanding of the risks and benefits. Generally, leukemia treatments involve the transplantation of live stem cells from a compatible adult to a patient. These kinds of stem cells are called hematopoetic stem cells and they are fully developed, committed stem cells. This means that they are locked in their genetic state as bone marrow cells.
Stem cells harvested from the umbilical cord blood, on the other hand, are usually less committed and comparatively more primitive than the stem cells harvested from bone marrow. This means that they are less likely to cause complications between donor and recipient. This complication is otherwise known as graft versus host disease or GVHD. This compatibility is one of the biggest benefits of cord blood implants. Finding donors becomes much easier as a result of this treatment and it poses no risk to either mother or child, unlike the highly invasive bone marrow transplants.
However, there are corresponding health risks to this form of treatment. Because the stem cells harvested from cord blood are more primitive than the ones harvested from adult marrow, there is a delay-time between the implantation of the cells and the point at which they can become fully functional parts of the patient's body. This delay-time can leave the patient particularly susceptible to many kinds of different infections and diseases. Also, a typical harvest of cord blood produces only enough stem cells for the body size of a child or small adult. The scarcity of this life-saving treatment has also made it very expensive.