Umbilical Cord Blood Banking?

Maestro writes "There must be many parents (and soon-to-be parents) here at Slashdot. What are your thoughts on umbilical cord blood banking? This seems like a major question for our newborn; the question is almost as stressful for us as naming the baby. Given Obama's stance on stem cells, the topic is timely. My understanding is that while the current uses for cord blood are limited, the sky's the limit for the future of stem cell therapies. But with the initial cost over $1000, and ongoing yearly fees, is it worth it?"

Comments

useless in 10 years

[messner_007]

In ten years, this thing will be useless, because we will be able to reprogram somatic cells to do all the work.

Re:useless in 10 years

[messner_007]

This is true, but Umbilical Cord cells aren't magical weapon for curing all diseases. There are not so many real uses for them today. They are promising, but not really curing the diseases.

The trick is in reprogramming. Those cells can reprogram to any cell in the body and theoretically replace any falling organ, but it is not sure if they will. Most of the time, they don't.

When we will be able to reprogram them (for example) to become insulin islet cells, then we have won the battle. We will cure diabetes. But when we will know how to reprogram them, then we will not need Umbilical cells, that aren't of much use today (although they aren't totally useless). We could easily use somatic cells (mature cells in the body) and program them to behave as we want ... some nice progress is being made on that field today ...

Re:useless in 10 years

[messner_007]

"But to say there is no real use is saying too much."

I wrote: "although they aren't totally useless"

I also wrote, they will be really useful when we will be able to program them, and then we will no longer need Umbilical cord cells, because we will be able to use somatic cells and program them ... .. by the way ... "Forgot the name, but there is a few years old tv-documentary about all this." ... this is a fantastic citation of a reliable source, congratulation ...

Re:useless in 10 years

[commodore64_love]

I agree with you. Just the other day I read that stem cells can be cultivated from teeth, and converted to any other cell, so the cord blood is not really necessary. Take the ~$10,000 you're likely to waste on cord blood storage, invest it in an IRA or other taxfree instrument, and then twenty years from now use that money to pay for your kid's college. Getting that education will be FAR more important to his health than some old rotting cord.

And then if he needs a new organ, they can take one of his old baby teeth, or his wisdom teeth, and harvest stem cells from there. No need for the umbilical.

Re:useless in 10 years

[mr rapidan]

My son's mother and I recently went through this decision. Of course, you're making sure that all your decisions are selfless and that $ is no object when it comes to the little one soon to arrive on the scene. But the cost . . . We figured that we're both very healthy people, no offbeat conditions, the four grandparents all lived into their 90s, no incidence of offbeat conditions in the close family . . . and didn't do it. Then, when you get some distance from the situation, it seems pretty crappy of the hospitals / drs to be pushing this on expectant parents. Wonder if there are kickbacks, etc.

Re:useless in 10 years

[malinha]

Take the ~$10,000 you're likely to waste on cord blood storage,

Damm too much expensive, my child was born last week, and i saved the umbilical cord blood, for a period of 25 years i payed 1230 euros ( ~ $1670 USD ) ONE time feed, no mambo jumbo yearly payments.

Do it.

[lecithin]

I'm a father of 4. Our newbie was born at 23 weeks/0 days gestation in December. He isn't due until April 12th. (Doing great, BTW) Birth weight was 1lb 6oz. (now at 2lbs 5oz.)

My son just got transferred out of the NICU at Children's Hospital in MPLS yesterday. He has needed numerous blood products, several surgeries and we still have a long road ahead. The odds are that he will have some developmental problems in the future. We banked his cells. Perhaps they are not going to do us any good today - tomorrow may just help our little man.

You just never know what is going to happen. For me, it is quite worth the investment.

Re:Do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

in 2002 with the neocons in power, I didn't think that market would ever appear - short sighted on my part

Considering at the time you could have sold those cells on the open market, I can think of another adjective to describe you.
If any researchers were interested, they could have even gotten federal funding to study those cells.

But don't let that get in the way of your outrage.

Re:This is a scam

[monadicIO]

Sorry, I should have prefaced it by saying that these are my opinions only for commercial ventures. If it's a govt. run thing for use by any needy person, I'd be all for it. Sadly such a set up did not exist where I live.

Regardless the Risk and Cost

[Grey_Coder]

In 2007 I lost my daughter of 22 to leukemia. In my opinion saving the umbilical cord is a no brainer. Yes, you must save it or later possibily spend the rest of your life with the burden of knowing that you could have.

Consider it insurance...

[Genda]

In the next few years we'll have effective cold sleep abilities (initiated by hydrogen sulfide exposure), which will allow us to put the terminally ill into suspended animation until the tech arrives that can cure the illness. This is not to be confused with cryogenics. The body is not frozen, so no problems with ice damage. The blood is simply replaced with an oxygenated superfluid, and the body is brought down to a near freezing temperature. Then later brought back to normal temps once a cure is found.

So having stem cells available for the next 3-5 years is a good answer to a fair number cancers, internal organ damage, brain or spinal damage, or any damage requiring significant regeneration. 10-20 years from now, we'll be able to trigger stem cells at will, create naked stem cells, nanotech structural replacements for cells/tissues/organs/etc. As the tech advances the need for keeping stem cells will quickly come and go. Better solutions to the human condition will render stem cell technologies obsolete within a decade of perfecting the technology (though an additional decade of use may remain for those unable to pay for cutting edge services.)

useless in 10 years. If you are the parent

[upuv]

Clearly you are not a parent. Neither am I.

However if I were I would view $1000 now and say $500 a year an unbelievable value gamble. In ten years this is all of a $6000 investment. Over on top of insurance of course.

I'm not one to gamble. But I know a good bet when I see one. I suspect that those "reprogramed" cells will not be as valuable as my natural fresh from conception ones. I suspect a doctor will go. "Holy Crap you have your own stem cells with you" well this is a no brainer procedure. You child will be fine you can take him/her home in two weeks. As apposed to well we can reprogram his/her toe nail cells but there is only a 32% chance they will take properly. We will have to hold her/him for another 4 months just to be sure.

Oh by the way. I'm fairly sure that funeral costs exceed $6000. So my bet is looking better.

Re:This is a scam

[Asic Eng]

We will have a daughter in March, so we looked into that topic, too. We went to a few presentation by hospitals in our area (they show you the facilities, introduce their staff, answer questions). In each presentation we asked about private cord blood banking - each time the doctors told us it was basically a scam. If your child needs stem cells at some point, the stem cells she will need will probably not be her own. So donating the blood to a state-run facility makes sense (it can help someone else). Storing it for your own use doesn't make sense (won't help someone else, and likely not yourself either). Where I live (Munich, Germany) the state-run cord blood bank doesn't need any donations currently - there are sufficient numbers of parents who choose to donate already. So it's not likely that the doctors were trying to push us in that direction for some ulterior motive.

Re:This is a scam

[a1bert]

the problem is that there is a very rare use of your OWN cells. For example they are completely useless for curing geneticall problems (a lot of cancer has geneticall predispositions)

Cord blood can save a life but usually not your own one. this's what commercial k services often forgot to say

it's good to save cord blood but not for your child but for the others..

Re:Think of it as health insurance

[Zeagle]

How much do you pay a year on auto insurance. You pay for it and hope to NEVER use it. Same goes for stem cells. I was able to bank my daughters cells for $600 initial and $95 a year till shes 18. I have only paid for one annual storage fee due to my referrals earning me free storage! Hope I never use it...

Cold reboot

[messner_007]

"I'm curious where you get somatic cells" ...

Somatic cells are all the "normal" - already adult - cells ... you can pick a cell you want (OK, maybe not the ones that are to specialised and totally changed for that) and program it, so it behaves as you like. You could theoretically "down-program" all the cells you want ... reset to the origin, where the cell was first programmed to do what it does as an adult (somatic) cell. It should be something like "cold reboot". And after the reboot, insert "Live CD" with you favorite Linux distro ... and it runs Fedora or Ubuntu or Liver cell program ... as you wish ...

We don't know how to do it yet, but we are trying to do that ....

Re:The cost does seem high

[aardwolf64]

I dunno, maybe cloning his child? Making a human goat hybrid that shares his DNA?

Re:The cost does seem high

[azadrozny]

When we make a monetary donation to a charity we want some knowledge of the way the money will be spent. We felt the same concept applied here. This organization (I do not remember the name) stated that the blood became their property and they gave no limits on its use. If they stated that they limited their research to finding a cure for leukemia, we probably would not have had a concern. While the probability is low that they were doing crazy human/animal gene splicing experiments (which we do find objectionable), it was because of their open ended policy that we decided not to make the donation.

Donation

[MrDiablerie]

I wasn't really interesting in banking but I really tried to push for donation when our child was born last October. Turns out you have to pay even to donate and it's quite costly because of the way the collection and transportation is handled. If they really want people to donate they should make it free.

And what makes you think it would be any different

[gillbates]

if he had bought the insurance?

Right now, I'm in the process of filing appeals and interviewing lawyers because my health insurance provider did not cover our son's birth. If insurance companies are willing to cheat their customers on matters as routine as childbirth, what makes you think they would treat a truly expensive condition any differently? Do you really believe that a for-profit corporation will pay a claim if they think they can get away with denying it?

Your friend would probably not have a prosthesis either way. Except now he can skip the several year litigation cycle and exorbitant legal fees.

Re:This is a scam

[MedBob]

Speaking as a blood banker involved with the Military Frozen Blood Program 10 years ago, Units are now 30 years old and still viable. I believe that there are official requests into the FDA to approve longer storage based on work with units that are that old. Theoretically, there is no reason why they would not last indefinitely.
Of course, this is speaking of the Red Blood Cells (RBCs). Because RBCs are simpler than stem cells, there might be a difference in viability in long term storage. Your mileage may vary.