Whoa, two posts in one day?  What is the world coming to?

I’d already planned this post for today before I saw the Writer’s Workshop post over at Tickled Pink Twice (which is a great blog, by the way) and decided to give it a go.  I couldn’t pass up the chance to write a letter to one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time.

Anyway.

This post is more of a serious one.  I don’t know how many of you know much about cord blood banking and its uses/benefits but here’s a short version.

At birth, your baby’s umbilical cord is filled with the same blood that has been nourishing her all through the pregnancy.  It contains nutrients, oxygen, and, most importantly, stem cells.  Normally, this blood would get discarded as medical waste along with the umbilical cord after it is cut from the baby and the placenta.

Now, however, you can choose to have the blood drained from the soon-to-be discarded umbilical cord and stored at specially-designed bank for up to 25 years at least.  (The medical field has released a statement saying that, if stored properly, cells in cord blood could exist indefinitely.)

There are a couple of options for storage – private and public.

Private storage means you and your immediate family are the only ones who will ever have access to the blood if it is needed.  Nothing ever happens to it without your permission.  It usually costs a couple thousand dollars in the first year for initial collection, processing and storage and then there is a nominal annual storage fee each year after.

Public storage means you donate the blood and, should you ever need it, there’s no guarantee you’ll get your exact child’s blood.  You may get a close match or have to wait.  And this blood can be used for research purposes without your permission.  Public banking is usually free since it’s a donation.

Both are very viable options and come with their own sets of pros and cons.

Why bank the blood?

Without getting into a stem cell research debate here, cord blood (provided your baby doesn’t develop any genetic diseases) contains stem cells that are clean, healthy and pure and can be used to treat at least 80 known diseases (with more applications being discovered all the time) including Leukemia, Cerebral Palsy, Tay Sach’s disease, Osteoporosis and a wide variety of other cancers, immune deficiency diseases and blood disorders.  For a full list, look here: http://www.viacord.com/treatable-diseases.htm.  And, like I said, they’re discovering and researching more applications every day.

Now, god forbid your little one or one of their siblings develops one of the above-mentioned diseases, they would have access to stem cell rich, healthy blood that could be used to treat and, in many cases, cure their ailment.

Saving something that was going to get thrown away with the garbage anyway just seemed like a smart move for us.  For Olivia.  I hope and pray that she’s healthy and strong her whole life and so are any siblings she may have, but you never know.  And having this option, this treatment, already available seems worth it to us.  I like knowing that I’ve done something proactive in preparation for anything that could occur.

We chose to go the private route and are going to be banking Olivia’s blood with a company named ViaCord.  We heard about them through our OB clinic and, in exchange for going through a little online educational piece, received a discount on our first year with them.  The discount ends 2/15/2010, by the way.

So, if you or someone you know, is expecting a baby, tell them about this.  It’s not as expensive as it seems and is, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do for your child and your family.  I want to get the word out about cord blood banking and try to cut down on the amount that’s thrown out each year.  Even if half of that was donated to public banks, the medical field would have a plethora of types of stem cells to continue research into some of the most common diseases that afflict children all the time.