Basically, there isn't anything in the blood of the cord that already isn't in the blood of the baby. There could be, perhaps, specials cells in the cord itself, but there is no physiological explanation for the extra blood in the cord being special in anyway, for the baby itself.
Breast feeding is great for a baby, but if the kid actually gets old enough to verbally ask for it, stop.
BTW, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, #38 is the answer to your question of when life begins. Unless, of course, you want to say that the joining of egg and sperm of humans does not result in human life. What then? Fish life? Dog life? Whale life?