Why I am learning about Cord Blood Banking

This post is sponsored by Cord Blood Registry ® (CBR ®), but the opinions expressed here are my own.

Recently a friend of mine’s god-daughter had a major health scare. For a few weeks, everybody was on edge and always anticipating the next chunk of news with every phone call. My friend’s goddaughter, we will call her Janie for the sake of not bringing her family information up, started having all of these random “lumps” pop up all over the place.

Janie isn’t too much older than our daughter. She’s only 2 or 3 years old. Janie’s mom was giving her a bath and noticed that her neck seemed swollen, she had palpable lumps on both sides of her neck and she had a couple palpable areas in her groin, in the inguinal canal area, her mom noticed when getting her changed in the morning. Immediately Janie’s mom made a doctors appointment for her daughter to get checked out.

Janie’s doctor appointment was scary. The doctor threw a bunch of medical terms around that sent her mom spinning. She didn’t know whether to be worked up and worried or what to do. The diagnosis could be anything from enlarged lymph nodes for an unknown reason, all the way to the opposite extreme of some sort of cancer. That dreaded “C-word” always makes people cringe, especially when talking about children.

Janie was sent for a barrage of testing. She had numerous blood draws, an ultrasound, a cat scan and many consults with different doctors. Janie’s mom was scared, but, tried to keep herself strong for Janie.

Luckily, all of Janie’s tests came back decently. We learned that she must be having some sort of reaction from a tick bite. We were all relieved to hear that she was going to be okay. Although her own cord blood may not have been able to be used in the treatment of her own cancer, Janie’s mom, was still glad that she had chosen to bank her baby’s cord blood with Cord Blood Registry (CBR) for potential future use.

After that experience, you better believe that Janie’s mom has been a little more proactive in bringing awareness to the to topic of cord blood banking to mothers, expectant mothers and people who are trying to conceive. She reached out to me through a friend and wanted to make sure I was aware of cord blood banking with CBR and how preserving my newborn’s stem cells could potentially help the future health of my family. She feels, as does CBR, that every family should be educated and have the opportunity to preserve their newborn’s stem cells. That’s why they offer affordable payment options to fit almost every family budget as well as a Gift Registry option where family and friends can contribute towards the cost of banking.

If you didn’t already know, I’m pregnant with baby number two. I didn’t look into cord blood banking with CBR much with my first child, but, after this recent experience with Janie and her family, and my eventful first pregnancy, the option to preserve number two’s cord blood is something I am definitely considering.

Cord blood banking has been around for over thirty years and cord blood stem cells from public and private banks have been used in more than 40,000 cord blood transplants worldwide. I want to make sure everyone is educated on how newborn stem cell preservation could possibly benefit the future health of your family, because your newborn’s stem cells may give your child or an immediate family member, depending on the condition and other factors, the opportunity to use this resource for current cord blood therapies. In the future, there may be other potential applications, like regenerative medicine. Today, many conditions may be treatable by cord blood as a part of a stem cell transplant, including various cancers and blood, immune and metabolic disorders. Once you’ve been educated, then make a decision as a family. If you’d like to learn a little more, here’s the How It Works video.