Is anyone thinking of storing their baby's stem cells? Advice needed!

[LilyCam78]

Congratulations all you pregnant girlies out there, mine is due on the 30th January, so excited!

My husband just got a bonus at work and we were thinking...holiday or we could do something super sensible and decide to store our baby's stem cells. What do you guys think about it, have you looked into anything like that? Didn't know it even existed until I came across it in a forum. Looks to me like a good thing to do...if you have the money that is, but I'm still undecided.

Help! What do you think? The company I'm looking at is Cells4Life www.cells4life.com, looked at other companies too but that one seems to store more stem cells.

Any opinions on this would be greatly received!

Loves, Lily-Mai xxx

It's all a bit of a blur really - think the courier was there within a couple of hours. In our case the cord had broken, so it's not like there was anything else that DD would have been getting from it.

AFAIK Cells4Life were the only company storing whole blood - might not be true now.

I plan to donate the cord blood to Anthony Nolan. If there aren't enough cells for therapeutic use it will be used for research.

There is precious little point in a large proportion of parents preserving their baby's cells if the research hasn't been able to move on to a point where further therapeutic uses are possible.

As a scientist (who spent 5 years in the field of regenerative medicine) I really, really, really wouldn't waste my money.

... any cell/tissue material has a finite life-span (even if kept in liquid nitrogen) also - what people refer to as being stem-cells, actually aren't (in the true scientific definition) as the language has been corrupted over the years. There are very few true 'stem-cells' once the baby in born - usually what people are referring to are 'progenitor cells'. These are NOT stem cells but sort of an inbetweeny cell... (if you get my meaning) in other words, have a limited differentiation potential (can only turn into some cell types, not ALL cell types). I know we all want the best for our children, but current research is so far 'off' from what people think is possible that it's not funny (hence me and a significant number of other scientists leaving the field as we could not cope with the public expectation tempting clinicians and scientists to do truly awful science).

Anyhow - I'm not. Put it that way.... Whatever you decide will be the correct decision as it's your child and your money. :)

Leukaemia doctor and researcher here - I wouldn't do it either as if, god forbid, your child need a BMT, it would be preferable for them to come from another person as their cancer has already demonstrated that it can outwit the patient's own immunity so another persons immunity is needed to try and seek out and destroy any residual cancer cells.

I would,, however encourage all to consider donating them to the national cord banks as they may save some other parents' child/teen who would otherwise have not options remaining.

As and aside - what have they said re infectious screening, and failsafes for storage as, if one sample with a.n.other nast virus goes in the tank, then all samples will be infected and, if there arent any failsafes in place for the equipment failing or them going out of business, what will happen to your samples?
another aside -my friend takes umbilical cord blood cells for research and it sounds quite fiddly with variable yield so wondering how many cells you could recover if not expertly trained to do it.

As a follow-up, I too intend on donating the cord blood for research/donorship. The fact that we're not in the position to properly use this material yet means that the research community really needs this stuff NOW... to find out as much as they can sooner rather than later. Also - if this stuff can be used to hep other people (even though me and blob can't use it ourselves), then - why not...

I'm a card carrying donor to the Anthony Nolan Trust as well - although I didn't realise they took cord blood!

If you do still want to use these private storage services, then Helspopje has a really, really good point... I'm not sure how the HTA (Human Tissue Act) views this material (as I do know that some types of treated blood samples are now longer covered by the Act - I think... so long ago I was active in the field!).

Facinating to read this. So it seems a good idea to donate to a bank but not to save for one's own baby?

There is a big initiative in France at the moment with maternities encouraging women to donate the placental bood. The literature they give the women says that although you can specifiy donation to a relation, it's illegal to keep it for the progenitor. I was a bit surprised to read this. All blood is therefore donated, either within the family circle or to a bank.

I'm not given a choice - I'm English thus have Mad Cow's disease..... Probably right there.

looks like the HTais interested in who collects and how they collect

'SAFETY: HTA regulation ensures that the cord blood is collected in a way that minimises the risk to mother and child. This is why collection must be carried out by a properly trained professional and on appropriate premises.

QUALITY: HTA regulation ensures that the best quality samples are taken. It also means that samples are traceable; so should there be a problem the cells can be traced to other batches.

CONSENT: HTA regulation means consent must be given by the mother for cord blood to be taken. Risks, benefits and options must be explained to the parents so that informed consent can be given.

LAWFUL: Activities involving the collection, testing, processing, storage, distribution or import / export of cord blood must take place under the authority of an HTA licence or where appropriate, a third party agreement with an HTA-licensed establishment.' from www.hta.gov.uk/licensingandinspections/sectorspecificinformation/stemcellsandcordblood.cfm

the diy method above is likely to breach requirements so the sample is unlikely to be administerable in the future

I'd love to donate but emailed national blood service in my last pregnancy and got extremely snotty email back saying it was only available in certain areas.

Would anthony nolan be any different I wonder?

That link re baby's vlood volume is really interesting. Both dds had delayed cord clamping, and I'm glad having read that.

It was not an option for us to save cells as we're not in a donation area, and we have no money for storage. Glad that both dds got all their blood though.

nbs is only collecting at certain sites with a high prevalence of thnic minorities as these are the tissue types that are absent/rare in the bank.

Most common-or-garden white tissue types are already well represented on the regular donor bank so little need to have even more samples as any patient needing to find a match with one of these shouldn't have much problem (there are instances where getting cells from a live walking taking human that you could approach for more later if needed is better than cord). Chances of getting a match if an ethnic minority or mixed race is much less so the NBS are concentrating their on call collection team at specific sites www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/cordblood/howtodonate/wherecanidonate/ which are selected for high prevalence of relevant ethnicities and high delivery rates and allows them to focus their trained staff where they are most needed (on call for the whole country would be a bit daft).

Anthony Nolan have other spcified sites too so - good reason to decline if out of area.