When you become a parent, your children are always going to be the top of mind priority in your life.  Whether this means ensuring they are happy or they are healthy, children require your time, your focus, and your promise to keep them safe no matter the circumstance.  There are plenty of things you as a parent can protect your children from in the outside world, but there are several things on the inside you have no control over.

Your child’s health can be a fragile thing to maintain as disorders and illnesses can appear almost out of the blue, and change everything in the blink of an eye.  That being said, medical advancements have provided options and potential where once there was none.  One of these advancements is storing umbilical cord blood for potential to treat illnesses later in your child’s life through a process known as cord blood banking.

Why bank cord blood? Cord blood is the blood left over in the umbilical cord following the birth of your child.  This was once considered afterbirth to be thrown away, but medical research has discovered it is a viable source of rich stem cells.  These cord blood stem cells if properly banked, have the ability to develop into disease fighting immune cells, which have the potential to treat illnesses such as leukemia, cerebral palsy, diabetes, and many more.

If your child is diagnosed with one of these conditions and requires a bone marrow transplant, you must first find a suitable donor to begin the treatment.  However, if you store your child’s cord blood at the time of his or her birth, the cord blood stem cells are a perfect genetic match to your child at any point throughout his or her life.  Also due to familial genetics, another member of the family could benefit from the cord blood should need ever arise.

Cord blood is still considered relatively new to the medical community, and further studies continue to delve into other potential actions cord blood could assist.  Most doctors are aware of the many benefits of cord blood banking, so if you are expecting a newborn consult with your primary doctor for more information.  This way you can welcome your child into the world knowing you have an ace up your sleeve to keep them healthy.