Click to play videoNew Delhi: You could call this new age insurance. Cord blood stem cell banking! These are stem cells which are harvested from a mother's umbilical cord after delivery and can be used in life-saving transplants for many diseases. It is already a whopping Rs 100 crore industry in India. But is it the miracle cure?
You've probably started hearing a lot more about cord blood banking – where you can pay to have your newborn baby's umbilical cord blood processed and stored for years in laboratory conditions.
Rich in stem cells, cord blood has the potential to save your child's life in case of transplants for diseases like blood cancer, haemophilia, thalassaemia and other immune system-related genetic disorders.
Meet Neelima Sharma, a young mother who like the 30,000 other registered Indian couples to store cord blood is banking on hope as much as medical science with stem cell research still in the nascent stages, chances of a child needing his or her own cord cells to treat a disease vary from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 2,00,000. But is it the next level of good parenting?
Neelima says, “It’s good parenting for sure, even when you buy a new vehicle you get it insured. So one lakh for my son's future health is priceless. So many diseases can be cured with it - hope my son never needs it - but if he does, I know I have banked the cure.
However, the treatment comes with a heavy price tag – about Rs 1 lakh for 21 years of storage.
The country doesn't yet have any public cord blood banks.
However, the flip side of the new research is that the cord blood stem cells cannot be used to treat the most common type of childhood leukemia. Scientists have now found that chances of leukemia increase by 80 per cent if one's own cord blood cells are used. Experts also worry that cord stem cells harvested today, may not even work in the future, when cures may be available,
Doctors at the New Delhi’s Gangaram Hospital says, “Companies who say 80 to 90 per cent diseases can be cured by cord blood cells are fooling the people, it is a money minting industry going by the day, but yes, couples with a medical history of blood related disorders, blood cancer etc, should bank.
The debate will continue whether cord blood is a medical waste or a miracle, and since no cord blood cell cure is in sight, n way are you an irresponsible parent if you haven't banked these cells.
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