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Umbilical Cord Blood Banking?

Posted by kdawson on from the banking-on-future-research dept.

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?"

6 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. useless in 10 years by messner_007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    1. Re:useless in 10 years by messner_007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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 ...

    2. Re:useless in 10 years by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Do it. by lecithin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    It could be worse, it could be Monday.
  3. Re:This is a scam by Asic+Eng · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Cold reboot by messner_007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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 ....