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A new study finds that aiming to wait just 60 seconds to clamp the umbilical cord of very premature babies at birth continues to have benefits two years on - decreasing the child's risk of death or major disability. The new study compared outcomes with caregivers aiming for 60 second delay in clamping and with caregivers aiming for cord clamping before 10 seconds after delivery. Researchers found that delaying clamping reduces a child's relative risk of death or major disability in early childhood by 17 percent. This included a 30 percent reduction in mortality before the age of two. In...

Protestors in Portland, Ore. took their fight of over 80 days to the Justice Center on Aug. 16 and declared war. Speaking to the gathered crowd, Letha Winston said "This is war you guys. We are at war, are you guys ready?" As the crowd cheered. Activists and agitators in Portland have had no problem taking the fight to the streets, night after night, demanding the defunding of police, the resignation of Mayor Ted Wheeler, and listing other social justice concerns. Wheeler made it out to a protest to hear activists' concerns. Back in June, the Portland city council voted...

JOHNSON COUNTY, KY - A Van Lear woman has been indicted for the murder of her newborn child. According to a court document, Amanda Meade allegedly severed her newborn baby's umbilical cord with scissors after the infant was born in her home. The baby died shortly after.

SANTIAGO (AFP) – A middle-aged leukemia patient has became Chile's first patient to receive stem cells from an umbilical cord in a radical procedure that could cure the disease, health officials here said Thursday. The 48-year-old man received the transplanted cells on Monday from samples stored in the so-called "Bank of Life" institute, said doctors at Santiago's Catholic University Hospital, where the operation was performed...

After birth, the umbilical cord and placenta are usually discarded as waste. But, the umbilical cord holds something extremely precious—stem cells. These stem cells have become standard therapy for serious diseases such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, and other immune system diseases (1). These stem cells are valuable because of their ability to develop into almost any type of cell in the body. Parents have two cord blood banking options. The first option is preserving your child’s stem cells in a private bank so the cells are available for the family’s personal use. The initial fees range between $1000-$3000. There are...

CHICAGO, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new US study offers insights into the way stem cells from umbilical cord blood can be used to successfully treat diabetes. Researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine studied twenty children aged between two and seven with type 1 diabetes, seven of whom were injected with cord blood cells. The researchers concluded that the study suggests that the cells “jump-start” and correct the patient’s own immune system. "This is the first attempt at using cord blood as a potential therapy for type 1 diabetes. We hope these cells can either lessen...

PARK CITY - Belly down on her parents' living room floor, Dena Brehm Gennerman cries as she props herself up on her elbows. The 39-year-old, who suffered a traumatic brain injury two years ago, could be in pain, though it's hard for parents Bob and Eva Brehm to say. Except for a couple of simple hand signs - fist up or down for "yes" or "no" - what Dena thinks or feels is largely a mystery to her family. Pained by his daughter's sobs as she endures her morning physical therapy with certified nursing assistant Chris Mrdutt, Bob Brehm sometimes...

SEOUL (AFP) - A South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. Hwang Mi-Soon, 37, had been bedridden since damaging her back in an accident two decades ago. Last week her eyes glistened with tears as she walked again with the help of a walking frame at a press conference where South Korea (news - web sites) researchers went public for the first time with the results of their stem-cell therapy.

In less than a week, a little girl from East Troy with a rare genetic condition will get on a plane with her mother, aunt and cousin and head to China to receive more than 60 million stem cells. Brooke Barels, 9, suffers from Glucose Transporter Deficiency, a condition caused by a genetic mutation of the gene that processes glucose from food into fuel for her body. As a result, Brooke suffers from cerebral palsy-like symptoms and cannot function like normal children.  She's the 83rd person in the world diagnosed with GLUT-1, as it's better known. She'll be the first...

Saudi Wealth Fuels Global Jihadism Posted Oct. 27, 2003 By Kenneth R. Timmerman Generations of Muslims in the Middle East have been raised on the anti-Western, anti-Semitic theologies of Ayatollah Khomeini and in the Saudi Wahhabi system of madrassas (religious schools). This foundation set the stage for the rise of Osama bin Laden. Doaa 'Amer is a professional TV anchor who hosts Muslim Woman Magazine on IQRAA TV, a satellite channel broadcasting throughout the Arab world. As she tells it, her job is to educate the next generation of children to be "true Muslims." Readers accustomed to hearing Islam described...

TORONTO, February 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Umbilical cords continue to surprise researchers as an abundant source of stem cells. Today’s Toronto Star reports that a group of scientists at the University of Toronto have discovered what they are calling the ‘jack-pot’ of stem cells in a mass of jelly found inside the umbilical cord. "We're very excited by this, that's for sure," said J.E. Davies, of the UofT's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. The source, known as Wharton's Jelly, surrounds the three umbilical cord blood vessels connecting the fetus and mother. The Toronto researchers used umbilical cords donated from...

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor July 12, 2004 Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Two new studies are providing further argument that embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary because adult stem cells are not only more ethical, but more effective as well. Researchers at the Tufts-New England Medical Center reported last week that that unborn children may be giving their mothers the gift of life. As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers have uncovered evidence that fetal stem cells may be migrating from the developing unborn child to diseased tissue and organs in the mother's body. Evidence...

Joined by 31 cosponsors, a Republican state senator from Duluth introduced a bill Thursday designed to foster stem cell research in Georgia and to avoid the controversy such efforts arouse. The bill by Sen. David Shafer would encourage research with stem cells from postnatal tissue – umbilical cords, the placenta and amniotic fluid. "Stem cell research efforts have been hampered by the controversy over embryonic stem cells," Shafer said. "But stem cells are not found only in embryos. Umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells which can be used for research without destroying any embryos." "Stem cell research using...

Cygenics (ASX: CYN) announce the first cystic fibrosis cord blood collection. Clinical history was made at The Mercy Hospital in Werribee on Easter Saturday, when baby Aiden Brundell donated his cord blood in the hope that his precious stem cells could one day rejuvenate sister Mikaela's lungs, which are failing from cystic fibrosis (CF), and save her life. This first collection of cord blood from the sibling of a child with CF is a major step towards treating the deadly effects of Australia's most common severe genetic condition among children, for which there is no cure. Aiden's cord blood collection...

A team of bioengineers led by the University of Toronto has discovered a way to increase the yield of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, to an extent which could broaden therapeutic use of these cells. In a paper published in the October issue of Experimental Hematology, researchers working in the University of Toronto's Stem Cell Bioengineering Laboratory have identified an important component blocking the growth of stem cells. U of T scientists discovered stem cells in 1961, and for about two decades researchers around the world have been searching for a way to expand the number of stem cells...

. . . about adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells? Probably not.WE HAVE HEARD IT STATED SO OFTEN it has become a media mantra: Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) offer the greatest hope for cures; adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells have far less potential; the Bush administration's embryonic stem cell funding restrictions have caused America to fall behind in the great international race to develop effective ESC treatments. Baloney, baloney, and pure baloney: The problems with harnessing embryonic stem cells as treatments appear to be growing, not shrinking. For example, ESC boosters used to claim that these cells are "immortal,"...

Adult Stem Cell Research Treats Spinal Cord Injury Patient   LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. An attorney, Smith's new book Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World was published last year. I have known about this for some time, but because I didn't want to be guilty of the same hyping that is so often engaged in by some therapeutic cloning proponents, I waited until it was published in a peer reviewed journal.Now it has been and the...

When Dr. Christian Barnard performed the world's first successful heart transplant back in 1967, he reached a new peak of human scientific achievement. However, almost 40 years later, the criteria for receiving a new heart is quite stringent, and heart transplants are granted to those patients who have the highest chance for recovery. For thousands of elderly or gravely ill patients with damaged hearts, a transplant is not an option. Now Israeli researchers are at the forefront of research which could one day make heart transplants obsolete - using stem cell technology, they're developing a way to use the blood...

Saving umbilical blood saves lives, says panel Friday, April 15, 2005 By LAURAN NEERGAARD ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Blood saved from newborns' umbilical cords could help treat about 11,700 Americans a year with leukemia and other devastating diseases, yet most is routinely thrown away, a panel of influential scientists said Thursday in calling for a tripling of the nation's supply. Cord blood is rich in stem cells, the building blocks that produce blood - the same stem cells that make up the bone-marrow transplants that help many people survive certain cancers and other diseases. When frozen from cord blood shortly...

Cord blood yields 'ethical' embryonic stem cells 00:01 18 August 2005 Hopes for treating disease with stem cells from umbilical cord blood has received a major boost, following the discovery of primitive cells with clinical potential matching that of the far more controversial embryonic stem cells (ESCs). The latter are originally derived from human fetuses, which are then destroyed, and have become a major ethical issue, especially in the US. Furthermore, the same team is applying new microgravity technology - originally developed by NASA for the International Space Station - to make large enough quantities of the stem cells to...