Hi To all,
I just went into a web site in which the advice to bank the umbilical cord blood of new born. It is a company web site so I wouldnt post it here.
I debated with the issue of Freezing the Umbilical cord / blood of a new born. There are alot of Pro's that one can argue. For the sake of the child health etc.
One can also find contras, I. this cord could be used for scientific research without anyone knowlage. Not that I am against stem cell researc (on the contrary) but I dont like when things are not peer reviewed. A company could do anything it wants.
So my friends, I just wanted to hear from you what do you think about issue.
Guy

When asked my answer always is that unless you have toomuch money to know what to do with that it is not worth banking your child's UCB. The odds of using that blood are very low. In many cases o cancer a modest mismatch, instead of your own cells, is actually preferred. The exception I think is when there is an affected sibling or family history of disease for which the UCB might be used. Then it makes sense. Otherwise, it is best to donate the UCB for to a bank for general use or research.

I agree with Carson about not banking your child's UCB for the reasons mentioned. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to donate the UCB since the collection of it is costly and therefore many hospitals do not accept donations. I am not concerned about the misuse of the UCB by the companies that bank it but I do abhor their use of guilting the parents into spending a fair amount of money on something that will most likely not be useful. Most parents do not realize the problems with using your own UCB and want to do anything to protect their child.