Posted on 10/12/2004 12:43:21 PM PDT by freespirited
In their first moments after birth, babies across Illinois are making a donation that could save the life of another child or adult.
A new law that took effect in January makes Illinois the first state to routinely ask pregnant women if they would like to donate the blood from their baby's umbilical cord for the valuable stem cells it contains. Before, the umbilical-cord blood was thrown away as medical waste.
Scientists can use the blood to make many different types of cells in the body -- to carry oxygen, fight disease and help stop bleeding.
Women who deliver babies at the Trinity Birth Center or Illini Birth Center are being asked, toward the end of their pregnancy, to consider making the donation. They are asked before their 35th week to make a decision about whether they want to donate, and are then sent a kit to take with them to the hospital.
``That's been a state directive,''said Candy Talley, nurse manager/maternal-child at Illini. ``All the hospitals that deliver babies in the state of Illinois should be doing that.''
Stem cells can be used to treat a wide range of diseases, including leukemias, lymphomas, immune-system disorders and inherited metabolic diseases. They also are being used for research in place of controversial embryonic-stem-cell lines.
State Rep. David R. Leitch, R-Peoria, heard a presentation about the benefits of stem cells and worked to make Illinois the first state to ask women if they want to donate.
Most of the Illinois donations go to Cryobank International, a Florida cord bank that gets about 40 donations a day, seven days a week. Hospital staffers have to move quickly; the donation has to reach Florida within 24 hours. Donations have to be at least 2 ounces, preferably up to 6 ounces.
After the donation is sent to Cryobank, it is processed, which takes more than 3 hours, said Dwight Brunoehler, president and founder. The blood also is tested for bacteria and disease.
``Stem cells are the cells that make all the other cells in your body,'' he said. ``You are born with them, but if at any time you lose them, you are going to die very quickly.''
Stem cells can be wiped out through chemotherapy in lymphoma patients or through other genetic diseases. Patients then typically get a bone-marrow transplant. But the odds of finding an exact match is one in 20,000 for a Caucasian, and one in several hundred thousand for other ethnicities, Rep. Leitch said.
Stem cells from cord blood are easier to match because the cells are ``naive,'' Mr. Brunoehler said. They don't form completely until the baby is six weeks old. Since the cells are taken before that time, they can adapt to match a different person.
Last year 3,500 stem-cell transplants were done in the United States, Mr. Brunoehler said. So far, six children in the United States have been treated for sickle-cell anemia and cured with stem-cell transplants.
However, most donated stem cells are being used for research. Cryobank is working on a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or ``Lou Gehrig's Disease''). Spinal-cord repair also is being researched. The lab doesn't do any controversial or cosmetic research, officials say.
Of more than 100 transplant centers in the country, less than half do stem-cell transplants. The others only do bone-marrow transplants. But once the procedure for stem-cell transplants is mainstreamed, Mr. Brunoehler said, more of the donations will be used for transplants instead of research.
In the first half of the year, more than 1,500 units were donated in Illinois. The federal government wants to build up an inventory of more than 200,000 units across the country, to be used for both transplants and research.
Diverse groups of women are being targeted for donations because each ethnicity has genetic diseases specific to that heritage.
Stem-cell transplants, although expensive at $16,000 for a unit, are much cheaper than bone-marrow transplants, which cost about $30,000. Rep. Leitch said a study showed that if Illinois had used stem cells for all transplants over a four-year period, the state would have saved $11.5 million in Medicaid costs.
The best thing about the bill, Rep. Leitch said, is that it has opened up communication on the use of stem cells. He hopes the conversation will continue and more states will adopt similar programs.
I don't have a problem with that. It doesnt require an abortion.
Seems like a great solution to me. Thousands of babies are born each day. How many stem cells do they need?
as long as they are doing AIDS and Hepatitis scans of the patients I see no problems with this. wouldn't be to smart to have contaminated Cells in the supply...
There are private companies that will store a baby's stem cells for possible later use (if the child were to get cancer and need a stem cell transplant). They provide a kit for the mother to bring to the delivery, and the stem cells are then mailed to the company for storage.
As for this story, I think this is great. It doesn't involve killing a fetus, and it could potentially help others.
I have no problem with this approach. My wife donated the umbilical cord blood from our second child in June.
This must be very new. All three of my children were born at Illini, the last being a year ago, and I was not asked. If I had been, I would have said yes. This is a great way to do research and not kill a fetus.
Since this posting comes from QConline, are you a local?
Does anyone know if stem cells can be used for cloning?
This is a good and moral thing to do.
I'm listening to Michael Medved and he just said that president Bush is the first president to provide funding for stem cell research. Anybody know anything about it?
> All three of my children were born at Illini
Silvis? East Moline?
No, not local to Illnois. I am trying to educate myself about the stem cell controversy. That article was posted on one of the websites I found. If you aren't familiar with it, you may find it of interest: http://www.stemcellresearch.org
When our youngest was in utero, my ob asked if I wanted him to preserve the cord blood and said it would be a $100.00 charge. I told hubby this right after the birth and with the doc present. The doc then explained that the reason for the charge is that the government considers the afterbirth to be a biohazard. I think if I had thought more about it, we would have donated it even if we had to pay the $100.00. Now I feel a little guilty.
Yep, Silvis, IL. Unfortunately, I moved to Colorado about 2 months ago. I miss home tremendously. Are you from the Quad Cities, or familiar with it?
Not much, but the president said it himself in the second debate.
> Yep, Silvis, IL.
Woo!
> Are you from the Quad Cities
Silvis born and raised. And edumacated in Iowa. And then employed in Virginia. And then Colorado. And then California. And now Utah.
> I miss home tremendously.
I miss autumn. I *don't* miss summer, with the billion-percent humidity. It's odd going home and seeing all the empty fields now covered in cookie-cutter housing...
"I'm listening to Michael Medved and he just said that president Bush is the first president to provide funding for stem cell research. Anybody know anything about it?"
Bush's decision was to allow possible federal funding for embronic stem cell research using 33 (or whatever the number is) lines from which stem cells have previously been retireved, but not for research using any new lines. I don't know if there is actually any such government funded research going on.
It is my understanding that there are no restrictions on privately funded research in this area. If there were easy money to be make, you can be sure that there would be more than adequate private funds available.
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