Is it necessary to store umbilical cord blood? How much does it cost every year?

Mothers have more or less heard the propaganda about umbilical cord blood during prenatal check-ups: \”Save a copy of umbilical cord blood to protect your baby\’s future health\” \”You only have once in a lifetime, if you miss it, you really have no chance\” \”Spend it now\” A small amount of money can save lives in the future.\” After hearing these words, I felt like I couldn\’t save it. Many people\’s money was deceived in this way. It doesn\’t matter how much money parents spend for their children, but the key question is, is it really worth the money? Today, Doudehui will have a chat with you about self-banking cord blood. What is cord blood? The umbilical cord is an important connecting structure between the mother and the fetus during the development of the fetus, and is an important channel for delivering nutrients to the fetus. After the fetus is delivered, the \”umbilical cord\” retains a precious life resource for the child – umbilical cord blood, which is blood collected from the umbilical vein by professional medical staff after the umbilical cord is cut. Umbilical cord blood is really useful Umbilical cord blood is valued by scientists and doctors because it is really useful. Umbilical cord blood, like bone marrow, contains a large number of hematopoietic stem cells, so it can be used for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, which can clinically cure many serious diseases such as leukemia and thalassemia. Moreover, compared with bone marrow transplantation, umbilical cord blood has two huge advantages: no separate surgery is required to obtain umbilical cord blood, and it can be saved when the child is born. It is much simpler than finding volunteers willing to donate bone marrow. The probability of successful umbilical cord blood matching is much higher than that of bone marrow matching. In the more than 20 years since cord blood entered clinical practice, tens of thousands of people have received cord blood transplants, and a large proportion of patients have been cured. But the truth that everyone doesn’t know is that umbilical cord blood is valuable because it can form a huge stem cell bank, so that everyone can search for useful matching resources. Can cord blood stem cells be used by oneself? Basically not! First, umbilical cord blood stores hematopoietic stem cells. Hematopoietic stem cells do have miraculous effects in some special blood diseases, such as aplastic anemia or certain types of leukemia. However, the maternal umbilical cord blood generally only has 50-80ml. In other words, in layman\’s terms, a full dose can be used for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in children under 10 years old. However, even if adults find that the amount of umbilical cord blood is insufficient, it is difficult to ensure a sufficient number of stem cells for transplantation. In fact, the number of surviving stem cells in umbilical cord blood will gradually decrease during the retention process, and after a few years they will be completely lost and become ineffective. In addition, the number of stem cells required by an adult is much greater than the number of stem cells that can be provided by one umbilical cord blood. Therefore, multiple umbilical cord bloods are often needed for one adult. Second, autologous transplantation is still in the exploratory stage, and more successful cases are allogeneic transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells. Many mothers store umbilical cord blood with the idea: \”Save the umbilical cord blood now. If the child gets sick in the future, the stored umbilical cord blood can be used to treat it.\” Unfortunately, if the child does get some disease (such as leukemia) in the future, the stored umbilical cord blood stem cells may have problems themselves, and using them for self-treatment will lead to a high chance of relapse or even treatment failure. The American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation has issued the \”Guidelines for the Use of Cord Blood\”, stating that in babiesThe probability of needing your own umbilical cord blood within 20 years after birth is extremely low, only 0.0005%-0.04%. The American Academy of Pediatrics also pointed out that although umbilical cord blood may play a role in the treatment of some chronic diseases in children in the future, further research is needed and there is no conclusion yet. If you can’t use it yourself, then your family, brothers and sisters can, right? Data shows that the chance of a child\’s umbilical cord blood matching that of a sibling is about 25%, and even lower than that of other family members. Therefore, self-banking cord blood is not the so-called life insurance. In the end, it is likely to be just a blank check. Should we preserve umbilical cord blood? Here is a copy of the recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) on the storage of umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells. It may provide you with some reference when making decisions: ① The collection of umbilical cord blood should not interfere with the labor process of pregnant women and newborns. care and should not alter the handling of the umbilical cord. ② When pregnant women inquire about cord blood storage related information, the advantages and disadvantages of public cord blood donation and autologous cord blood storage should be informed fairly and accurately. ③At present, the indications for umbilical cord blood transplantation are limited, including genetic defect diseases, blood diseases and malignant tumors. ④Patients should know that in some cases, their own hematopoietic stem cell transplant is useless. For hereditary diseases, since the umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells contain your own genes, autologous transplantation cannot treat them. ⑤ Cord blood consultation should inform parents that the probability of their children or family members suffering from diseases that can be cured by autologous umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells is very small. ⑥ It is not recommended to use cord blood storage as \”biological insurance\” against future diseases. ⑦Doctors and cord blood related staff should disclose in detail any financial benefits or other potential risks when promoting autologous cord blood hematopoietic stem cell storage to pregnant women. Both the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation Committee and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have issued a formal position: parents are encouraged to donate their children\’s cord blood to public banks. In my country, there are seven cord blood banks that have passed technical demonstration and acceptance, namely in Shandong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. At present, the National Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cell Bank is under preparation to better utilize the public welfare of umbilical cord blood. If both parents choose to donate umbilical cord blood, even if a child is really sick and needs it, it will be easier to match. This is also the original intention of the development of umbilical cord blood storage technology: to allow more people in need to find matches in public blood banks and save lives at critical times. It is wrong to have the purpose of \”treating diseases that will happen to you in the future\” .