Cord Banking In China

Introduction

The Umbilical Cord connects a fetus with its mother at the abdomen with placenta. It contains a vein and two umbilical arteries responsible for nourishment to the fetus from mother’s body and the removal of waste from the fetus body.

History

A Banking Cord is a facility that preserves umbilical Cord Blood for future use. Expecting parents are often faced with many significant decisions before their baby is born. Saving the blood of their baby's umbilical cord is a ‘once in their life time’ chance to preserve for possible use in future to save their baby’s life. If they can accept the cost of banking cord blood it is one kind of good investment and insurance against many potential lives threatening illness like lymphoma, metabolic disorders, cancers, leukemia, thalassemia, sickle cell disease and many other transplantable curable diseases. It is a good insurance against under the conditions of bone marrow transplant.

Banking cord with umbilical blood has become an important part in the development of stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine in China. China has developed many private –public models for cord banking. To make this concept popular among people, arrangements have been made so that they can watch from an outside window the whole process of collecting blood for cord banking. When the fresh blood is taken from the umbilical cord of the newborn it passes through a series of processes. There are processes that check the weight, bacteria detecting, sterilization, and strength of the stem cells. If the umbilical blood satisfies all the criterion of banking cord, it is then preserved in a frozen form in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of 196 degree Fahrenheit below zero.

Features

Banking cord with umbilical blood was initiated in 1996 in Beijing, China. Six cord blood banks were built in China before 2008 and the Ministry of Health in China had plans to build 10 more by 2010. Six cord banks are operating in three cities of China, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and provinces of Sichuan, Shandong and Guangdong.

A statistics reveals that as per the Chinese Ministry of Health report 25,000 units of umbilical cord blood units have been donated to these banks. . The experts have estimated that at least 70,000 units of cord blood is required to meet the clinical demand for treatments like metabolic diseases, cancer, leukemia, etc. The Beijing Cord Blood Bank has the capacity to store 40,000 units in cold nitrogen. Out of the total units in China that have been made so far, 25% are by the donations from public. To achieve this target the Ministry of Health in China in association with Beijing's umbilical cord blood bank will educate common Chinese people on the importance of preserving umbilical bloods.

The success of stem cells transplantations has exceeded 400.

 

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