You and Your Baby |
There's so much to think about when you're expecting a baby, from decorating the nursery to picking out names. Amidst all of the excitement, there are many important choices to make. Be a stay-at-home parent, or secure child care and return to work after the baby is born? Cloth or disposable diapers? Breast-feed or bottle-feed? Save the baby's cord blood, or not? That last question might be unfamiliar to you if you haven't been privy to any baby discussions lately, but it's a decision that today's parents must make.
A newborn baby boy lies on a bed beside a bag of umbilical cord blood collected from him at Beijing Chuiyangliu Hospital on March 8, 2005, in Beijing. See more blood pictures.
Cord blood is essentially the blood from the umbilical cord of a newborn baby, although in actuality it should be called placental blood, as most of the blood is in the placenta. This blood amounts to as much as 180 milliliters, or 6 ounces, on average.
Since the early 1990s, there's been a movement to save, or "bank," this blood for potential future use. Cord blood is a source of a specific type of hematopoietic (blood forming) stem cell and can potentially cure a host of diseases and other conditions. Cord-blood-derived embryoniclike (CBE) stem cells are similar to embryonic stem cells, but with the plus of using something that was going to be thrown away anyway.
Does that mean that CBE stem cells are less controversial than embryonic stem cells? You'd think so, but that's not the case. Let's start with looking at how cord blood is collected and stored, as the latter is one of the sources of controversy.
After most hospital births, the placenta is discarded. Even before the cord blood movement, however, there were some people who chose to save the placenta. Some traditions proscribe that the placenta is to be buried at the base of a tree, which grows as the child grows. Other women (and sometimes their families and friends) actually eat their placenta. It's known as placentophagy.
Proponents argue that the placenta is full of nutrients. They also claim it contains compounds that reduce pain, encourage the production of milk and prevent complications such as post-partum depression. Many other placental mammals, including dogs and cats, regularly eat the placentas and umbilical cords of their young. However, many gynecologists point out that people generally don't need the nutrition, and that the benefits are actually very minimal.
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