Michael told me he’d saved his baby boy’s umbilical cord blood with a company his doctor recommended. It’s insurance for the health of the baby in the future in case his own stem cell is needed, he explained. “Cord blood banking” is still an experimental science that harvests the stem cells from the umbilical cord blood from the mother’s placenta immediately after she gives birth. The stem cells are then stored for future use against stem-cell-treatable diseases (or god knows what’s possible in the future). Though some of those diseases can be treated with adult bone marrow transplants, the statistics of matching someone with the right bone marrow tissues are much less than matching stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood since stem cells are capable of developing into almost any type of cells or tissues.
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At $1,500 a pop to get an account open, and an additional $100 a year to keep the account open, it’s a pretty hard pill to swallow. Some people argue that the potential of a disease is much greater than the cost of maintaining the umbilical cord stem cells in a bank. Well, true. But for a young family trying to scrape enough food to keep things going, it’s a big investment, especially payments are made indefinitely to keep the stem cells available.
Now that’s some business plan. Take a cutting edge science that may or may not work in the future; start marketing effectively on its “potential” benefits to your baby. And convince the parents it’s worth the investment throughout the lifetime of the baby. And receive payments forever.
I am not disputing the umbilical cord blood’s potential uses. In fact, researches have already shown its effective uses. I guess this is something we’ll have to discuss with our doctors. I suppose this is most useful for families that have a history of diseases passed down for generations.
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