Cord blood is obtained from umbilical cord and placenta right after the birth
. It is very beneficial for human's life such as for treating some disorders such as leukemia. Cord blood has stem cell which is potential to become blood cells.
This kind of blood is collected from the baby right after the delivery process in which the umbilical cord is cut. The process of the blood collection does not leave discomfort either to the baby or the mother. This blood is then store at the cord blood bank so that it allows your family to use it in the future if it is necessary to cure some possible disorder such as leukemia. If you plan to save it, you have to plan it at the beginning of your pregnancy since not all of the hospital can do this.
Cord blood can be transplanted to the patients who suffer blood disorder. However, it has limited capability in the amount of the blood-forming cells. In this case, the transplantation is mostly carried out for the children with this kind of disorder. The first step of the transplantation is giving the chemotherapy as well as radiation therapy to the patients. It is able to destroy the cells of disease in the body.
After the therapy has done, the patient is then infused using cord blood through a Hickman catheter. It is a central line which can be inserted to the vein of the chest. Then, the cell will enter the bone of the patient and replace all the diseased bone marrow. If they are able to grow sufficiently, the new cell will make new blood cells. This process is also known as engraftment in which it takes around 30 days.
This transplant is very beneficial since it does not need perfect tissue match for the patient and the donor. Another benefit you can take is that it has low risk of contamination for it is collected from pregnant mother who has lower risk of blood-borne diseases and viruses. In another word, the patient will have lower risk of graft-versus-host disease since it uses immature cells. Graft-versus-host disease is known as the disease which commonly affects the patient of transplant.
After the birth, cord blood is not required. In this case, it will be better to bank the cord blood for possible future need. It will be helpful for those who need for the bone marrow transplant since he has it readily for his need.