My baby's precious cord blood

Dear Baby P,

Last January 17, your Papa and I decided to invest in cord blood banking for your health security, which would benefit our family as well especially your future siblings. And just this March, we have finally received our cord blood collection kit that we would be using on your delivery sometime in April. Your Papa had already known of this kind of investment even before I got pregnant. And when he brought it up to me during my first trimester, I was skeptical at first about it.



Fast forward to my second trimester during Christmas season, your Papa gave me a copy of “Smart Pregnancy”, a special edition magazine of Smart Parenting. This magazine had several articles dedicated to the concept of cord blood banking, particularly with CordLife. Aside from scientific findings and success stories on experimentally treating diseases via stem cell transplant where the stem cells used were extracted from a baby’s umbilical cord blood, there were also testimonials from celebrity moms who have been at peace with their concern on their babies’ health when they finally invested in cord blood banking. As of this writing, more than 80 diseases have been discovered to be treatable by stem cell transplant.

Despite much information I have gathered from my own research regarding the pros and cons of cord blood banking, I still asked a lot of questions to our cord blood banking consultant since the concept of such procedure is relatively new and is yet to be improved. We learned that even if a baby’s stem cells extracted may have some kind of infection or genetic defect, they could still be qualified for storage and preservation although not for all treatments of some diseases. And so far, the storage facility of CordLife in the Philippines does not have yet the capability of multiplying its stored stem cells in order to satisfy a stem cell transplant’s required stem cell count, whereas CordLife in Singapore already has. But as you grow, I know there would also be growth and advancements that would happen in our country’s cord blood banking industry, so your Papa and I did not regret investing in it.

Although the health histories of both your Papa and I do not have anything remarkable, we realized that investing in cord blood banking for your health is just as good as or maybe even better than investing in life insurance and mutual funds. We realized that it would be better to invest early for ready treatment rather than to spend more time and money in curing any unexpected illness that you or anyone in our family may have in the future. The greatest advantage we have seen in cord blood banking is that stem cell transplant has a higher chance of success than bone marrow transplant because stem cells can be used for treating not only the donor but also the donor’s co-members of the family, as stem cells do not require a 100% match compared to bone marrow.

Collecting cord blood from a baby’s umbilical cord can only happen once, and that is when the baby is born. I learned how precious your cord blood is and I can never have any of it again if we did not decide early on to store and preserve it. It would be a great thing to not need your cord blood’s stem cells in the future, but would be life-saving otherwise. This medical breakthrough did not exist in the past generations before you would be born, and one of those previous generations includes me and your Papa. This is something we are thankful for because you are the first in our family to take advantage of such medical breakthrough, and it has given us peace of mind to know that God gave you to us at the right time and at the right moment, where we can prepare for your precious health in a way that would benefit you all throughout your lifetime.