A 10 year old Ricky Martinez from Orange County, was diagnosed with a rare condition that could only be cured with a bone marrow transplant. But doctors saved Ricky through an equally rare procedure using his own umbilical cord blood that his mom had donated when he was born.
Not so long ago cord blood was considered a medical waste. But now almost every day cord blood transplants are helping give many like baby Valentina DeLeon a second chance at life whose rare disorder could have turned fatal if not for the transplant.
The Pages were in two minds when they initially heard about saving their newborn’s cord blood. But when they finally decided to bank it, even they did not know that it would help them save their baby girl’s life.
Todd Taylor, a democratic state lawmaker is fiercely pushing for a law that would allow Iowa mothers to donate their umbilical cords to public banks. It was because of a donated umbilical cord of an Australian newborn that Todd’s brother Wayne who suffered from blood cancer is on the road to recovery.
A UK family, who had already lost a son, is thankful to the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and a mystery cord blood donor, for their 11-month-old son’s amazing recovery from a disease that normally takes a child’s life before they turn a year, if untreated.
When Philips Meehan, 43 of West Sussex was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2007 he needed a bone marrow transplant. But chances seemed meek as he had no family matches and a live donor could not be found despite a 6 month search by the Anthony Nolan Trust and the NHS.
Cord blood is rich in stem cells, the building blocks that produce blood — and the same stem cells that make up the bone-marrow transplants that help many people survive certain cancers and other diseases. But cord blood has some advantages: These younger stem cells are more easily transplanted into unrelated people than bone marrow [...]
