Cord blood, usages and common knowledge.

It`s a tube between the embryo and the placenta. It`s made of veins and arterys and provides nutritious substances and oxygenated blood. When the animal, the blood cord belongs to placentarious mammals, is born the cord cuts and leaves a scar. We humans call it navel.

The blood cord in humans usually 50 centimeters long and has a 2 centimeters diameter.

Recently it`s been found that the blood inside the blood cord is a good source of stem cells, used to treat spinal cord damaged by leucemia.

In the past the blood cord was discarded after the childbirth.

Now the science has discovered that the cord blood has good propierties for blood donation, treating of some illness and biomedical investigation. This means a great advance in fighting against blood anomalities in child and spinal cord transplants.

A mother cell has the ability of regenerating itself through mitotic division. It also has the capability of building up the tissues of the body. An adult tissues tend to have a determined number of mother cells that allows the renovation and treatment for damaged tissue. They are also called stem cells because they are the basis of the other cells.

The umbilical stem cells are immature so they can adapt to any organism so the rejection is very low when talking about a transplant. The cord blood is used to treat leukaemia, lymphomas, spinal cord sickness, congenital immunodeficiency or metabolic failures. It`s also used to treat blood problems like anaemia.

Thanks to this wonderful capabilities a lot of banks for cord blood had been founded. There they keep the cord’s of newborns in order to maintain them in the best conditions for future applications.

This allows a faster disposition of the blood. Not needing to find a compatible donor, and it’s not necessary to extract spin cord of the donor.

The procedure to donate the cord blood is easy. After the birth, when the placenta is still in the uterus, the cord is cut and the blood is stored through a cord punting. There’s no risk to the mother neither to the child so this blood will be at disposal for a patient who needs it.

The blood transplant is via intravenous infusion. It helps to replace the sick cells of the patient. The injection of this cells helps to restore the defences handicapped by illnesses.

A blood cord bank keeps the blood that has been donated. The stem cells are extracted and frozen to keep their properties.

The cord is formed by three vessels, two arteries and one vein. Sometimes there can be alterations that disrupt the correct operation of the cord.

The absence of one of the arteries. This is related with some abnormalities in the baby’s growth or dysfunctions at cardiac or renal level.

Alterations in the length of the blood cord. A small cord may stop the baby for reaching a normal position of labouring (with the head in front looking down.) If the blood cord is too long it can coil around the baby.

Turns of the cord. They do not mean alterations in the oxygenation of the baby in all the cases. It’s common to find some turns in a vaginal labour at some point of the cord. Fortunately this turns can be detected via fetal monitoring.

It’s important to maintain the hygiene of the blood cord since the first day. In order to avoid infections you need to clean it from tip to tip with a lint with alcohol. After six or ten days the cord will dry up and fall. It’s possible that a little scar appears and bleed. But keeping the alcohol for one or two days is enough to prevent any problem. If the cord presents an intense red colour in the base or it smell it’s good to contact your doctor that will tell you the adequate way of treating.

Ways of storage of cord blood. Some banks store the samples of blood in a complete way, other separate the white and red corpuscles.

Some problems in the ethical field are now in the spot. It’s a priority to resolve who is the owner of the blood, how do you get the information and authorization to make the donation or use the donated blood, how to maintain the privacy and confidentiality.

Recently the most large analysis about cord blood usage was done. It suggested that the patients who had received cord blood without having compatible relatives had survived at the same amount as the one who have it. So it’s a big step into the normalization of cord blood usage for transplants. It’s necessary to continue doing test in order to make it clear and going forward into the discovery of new treatments.

Nevertheless the parents who are waiting a baby need to be well informed and take all the possibilities into consideration before doing a transplant of cord blood.

The knowledge is the key to understanding.

Until the next time.

Juan Martínez.