Umbilical Stem Cells

The Benefits And Disadvantages Of Saving Baby's Cord Blood

There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about stem cell research and using stem cells to save lives. Many parents are now storing or selling their Baby's Cord Blood for the future or to save the life of a child with a debilitating disease.

There are also other uses for stem cells, like the ability to grow new and healthy organs for children whose vital organs are failing. There has been a lot of information passed around about using and storing cord blood as well as a lot of varying opinions about the process.

Saving cord blood is quite costly, but selling it and allowing it to be used for another person is a different story. There are ways a person needing these life-saving cells can obtain them for free through the help of various organizations.

The biggest part of the controversy was that since stem cells can be used for cloning organs, these same stem cells can be used for cloning humans. While technology has yet to allow for quite that big a step, it is still an issue for many people out there who are concerned about the issue.

Now that it is legal to save and sell Baby's Cord Blood and use stem cells, news stations all over the world are buzzing about the subject. There has been quite a lot of research done on stem cells, but there is still so much to learn. Currently, there are advantages and disadvantages to saving stem cells from a baby's umbilical cord.

Some of the advantages: They are readily available in any emergency that may arise for the child, a family member or anyone that is compatible and needs a transplant, there is no pain for harvesting the cord blood, and they have the potential to save lives from many various diseases.

Harvesting Baby's Cord Blood has its disadvantages as well like there is a costly fee for registering with a cord blood bank and a yearly fee to maintain it, the cord blood may never be needed by the child, this cord blood is not enough to save the life of an adult as it is only sufficient for children, doctors are not experienced in the transplant process and there is no guarantee that the same disease won't happen again using the stem cells.

So much is still needed to be found out via research and development before this is a truly viable option.