Currently, many companies offer parents to keep the umbilical cord blood of their child. The reason ? The blood that circulates in the cord contains stem cells, usually located in the bone marrow, which are used to treat blood diseases, genetic diseases or immune deficiencies.
A great hope for parents who think they can cure their child if he ever develops one of these diseases. A hope made imaginable by private banks like Cryo-Save which propose to keep this blood – for between 1500 and 3500 € – for years in case it is useful.
A rather lucrative business since Cryo Save estimates that each year, nearly 4,000 French couples secretly place the precious liquid in a foreign bank.
Except that this dream offered to parents is a delusion. Luc Douay, hematologist, explains “today, there is no reason to think that it is useful to keep your child’s cord blood to cure it one day. Private banks are advertising falsehoods based on the vouchers. results that are achieved with allogeneic donation (ie, using the donor’s cord blood for another person). “
Indeed, even if the cord blood can help another person, no study today shows that it can be useful for the donor. It has been shown that if one wants to treat a child with leukemia, an autologous transplant is of no interest since the child already has the disease germinating in his own placental blood.
In contrast, blood from this cord may help another baby because the stem cells will migrate to the bone marrow, multiply there and regenerate the blood cells of the recipient. It is therefore important to use the blood from the cord to make a public donation. Today, in France “10,000 donations are made each year. Our objective would be to go from 10,000 to 30,000 or even 50,000 donations” hopes Luc Douay, hematologist.
If you want to donate umbilical cord blood, check with your maternity ward, as not all health facilities can do it. One of the selection criteria concerns the quality of cord blood in terms of stem cells (number, quality, etc.).
