As you probably know, bone marrow transplants are used to treat several types of cancer and blood diseases.
What you may not know is that bone marrow donors tend to be of Caucasian descent. This means Caucasians have a 50% chance of finding a donor through the National Marrow Donor Program. But for other ethnic groups, the odds can drop to less than 15%, especially for children from couples of mixed ethnicity.
Even within large, international bone marrow registries, the search for a perfectly matched donor is very difficult. Only about 25% of 7,000 patients find a suitable match each year.
Cord blood stem cells represent a major breakthrough as a life-saving alternative to bone marrow transplants.
When you bank your baby’s cord blood, you preserve a unique biological resource that is like a "self-repair kit" for your child, and possibly for your entire family.
Doctors are increasingly turning to cord blood stem cells as a viable alternative to bone marrow transplants: simpler, less painful, and less risky. Saving your baby’s cord blood stem cells means a genetically perfect match for your baby, and there’s a 25% to 30% probability of being a match for a sibling.
