Donating Umbilical Cord Blood
Umbilical cord blood donation can save many patients with congenital diseases and especially those with diseased bone marrow. Thus, not only to neonates in critical health, as might be thought at first.
In short, the umbilical cord is donated so that a specialized team extracts the stem cells contained in it and thus can use them for various treatments. Stem cells help to renew blood cells, something that comes to be especially useful in cases of patients with leukemia, for example.
It should be noted that the procedure is very simple and does not pose any risk to the mother or the baby. Next, we will comment on other aspects that you should know.
When did the donations start?
Until a few years ago when a baby was born, the placenta and umbilical cord were thrown away. But thanks to the investigations carried out, it was discovered that it was not necessary to discard these valuable tissues, since they are full of stem cells; which are very special, since they present different characteristics from the rest of the cells that make up the organism. They have the capacity for self-renewal and the ability to differentiate into one or more cell types.
They are also the regenerative source of the body’s tissues or organs ; they are unspecialized cells or what is the same, undifferentiated; they are self-renewing, that is, they can be multiplied.
Starting in the 90s, stem cell transplants began to be performed in patients with bone marrow problems. These cells came from umbilical cords; with which, the donations of these have been made for approximately 25 years.
Umbilical cord blood donation
If a pregnant woman decides to donate her umbilical cord at the time of delivery, she must notify her doctor and go to one of the Cord Blood Banks. Only an authorized center can carry out the agreement and, subsequently, the respective procedure.
Now, for the donation to be valid, the woman must be healthy, be over 18 years of age and must also have had a normal pregnancy (not pathological), without complications of any kind.
When the baby is born and before the womb expels the placenta, it is the ideal time to extract the largest amount of stem cells. In this sense, it is worth saying that only once in life is there the possibility of extracting such a large amount of stem cells and it is just before the womb expels the placenta, when a baby arrives into the world.
It is a painless procedure that is performed immediately after the baby is born, by the obstetrician-gynecologist; who channels the umbilical vein and draws blood from there. Once finished, send the container to the bank where it will be stored.
Why resort to donating umbilical cord blood?
In the United States and several European countries, which are pioneers in regenerative medicine, the possibility of regenerating intestinal tissues, among other organs of the body, is being studied.
There are many people who can benefit from an umbilical cord donation. For this reason, the so-called Voluntary Bone Marrow Donor Registries have been in operation for years in all developed countries. These registries have the data of all the people in that country who wish to be bone marrow donors. In addition, they are the ones who search for a compatible donor for patients who need it.
In Spain, according to an article by the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AESPED), the registry is the REDMO (Spanish Registry of Bone Marrow Donors) created by the Carreras Foundation in 1991 and which has an Agreement with the National Transplant Organization (ONT) and the Ministry of Health and Social Policy since 1994.
The data referring to cord blood will be included in a coded form in the bank’s database and sent to REDMO. These data will be treated confidentially.
And the best thing is that thanks to this type of stem cell banks, any patient on the planet today has at their disposal the more than 200,000 units of cord blood stored in the world; Hence the importance of carrying out the donation of umbilical cord blood.
Once the compatible cord blood unit is located, it is sent to Spain to be transplanted. This implies that neither the patient nor the donor have to travel.
The procedure is the same internationally. In fact, Spanish cord blood units have been used to transplant patients in the United States, Australia, and other European countries.
Likewise, many Spaniards have donated bone marrow that served to improve the health of foreign patients. The important thing about these initiatives is to collaborate with them to help save lives.
