

There are a lot of unknowns about raising a child: will they be more interested in swimming or tennis? Will they aspire to be a doctor or an astronaut? Will they be a terrible two or a traumatic teen (…or both)?
When it comes to children, the only thing you can know for sure is that there is guaranteed to be nothing you can know for sure.
But, there is something you can do from the very beginning to ensure your child has a safe and healthy future. A way to access a rich source of stem cells to help treat around 80 different health disorders, including blood cancers, and immunodeficiency and metabolic disorders.
It’s called cord blood and tissue banking, and although it sounds like something from a futuristic sci-fi flick, the process has actually been used to treat a variety of health issues for more than 20 years. So how exactly does it work? And what does it cure? Let us delve a little deeper.
Umbilical cord blood is a rich source of stem cells, which are the ‘building blocks’ of the body. Stem cells have the ability to become any type of cell in the body, like a muscle cell, red blood cell or a brain cell. The blood stem cells found in cord blood can develop into various types of human blood cells.
The most common uses for cord blood relate to the treatment of blood disorders and cancers, like immune deficiencies and leukaemias. New technological and scientific advances mean the range of diseases that are able to be treated with cord blood is getting bigger and bigger, which is good news for us.