July is Cord Blood Awareness Month

When it comes to pregnancy, birth, and having a new baby, all of the information out there and all of the choices that come along with it can feel overwhelming. It’s important to take the time to educate yourself on all of the important decisions you need to make for you and your little one during this time. By doing so, you’ll make the entire process easier and less stressful. There are the obvious decisions like your bub’s name, and whether you’ll use pain medications or not during labour, but there are some things you should consider that you may not even know about. One of those things that many parents might not even realize is an option is banking their baby’s cord blood, known as cord blood banking or umbilical cord banking.

Raising Cord Blood Awareness

The blood from a baby’s umbilical cord has wonderful properties that can provide potentially life-saving benefits. Since not everyone is aware of the amazing potential with cord blood and the fact that they can save their baby’s cord blood, it’s important to make an effort to raise awareness on the subject. For this reason, July has been deemed Cord Blood Awareness Month. The more people that know about the option of banking their bub’s blood, the more people that can take advantage of the amazing benefits of banking cord blood.

How Cord Blood Banking Works

If you choose to bank your baby’s cord blood, you’ll need to make the decision before the birth of your baby. This is because birth is the only time that the cord blood can be collected. Cord blood banking consists of collecting and preserving stem cells from the baby’s umbilical cord and the placenta. It is then stored in a cord blood bank until it is needed.

Benefits of Cord Blood Banking

The stem cells found in the blood of the umbilical cord have tons of potential uses and amazing benefits. Stem cells can turn into other cells giving them the potential to potential to help treat diseases. Banked umbilical cord blood can be used in the treatment of many different ailments including immune disorders, metabolic disorders, and blood disorders. Read about the amazing uses of cord blood here.

Why You Should Bank Your Baby’s Cord Blood

If you bank your baby’s cord blood, it will be saved for future medical use. Your baby’s cord blood can potentially go to help treat your child should they become ill with certain diseases. It also may be able to help someone else such as a family member. In some cases, cord blood may even make the difference between life and death. The majority of the time, umbilical cord blood is treated as medical waste and disposed of. That means that a huge amount of potentially life-saving cord blood is just being thrown away. By saving your baby’s cord blood and helping to educate others to do the same, you can help to reduce this shameful waste.

Choosing How to Bank Your Baby’s Cord Blood

In addition to just making the decision to actually save your baby’s cord blood, you’ll have to also decide if you want to go with private cord blood banking or public cord blood banking. They are vastly different things, so you should educate yourself on each. There are pros and cons of both private and public cord blood banking that you’ll want to consider before making a decision. For example, private cord blood banking is generally fairly expensive. However, with public cord blood banking, the umbilical cord blood of your child will not be reserved specifically for them. In other words, if someone else that is a match of your child’s cord blood needs it, it won’t be there for if your child or someone else in your family ever needs it. Read more about private vs public cord blood banking here.

Spread the Word

The benefits of banking our babies’ umbilical cord blood are undeniable, and it is very sad that so much cord blood is just thrown out as medical waste instead of being utilized to help people and even save lives. It’s not just a good idea to bank your own baby’s umbilical cord blood, but you should make an effort to educate others about the options available and all the amazing benefits that banking our babies’ cord blood can bring.