Storing your baby’s stem cells might provide a lifeline if they fall seriously ill in future. Here we investigate this relatively new private health service…
Stem cells – the basic building blocks of human life – are already being
successfully used as part of the treatment for childhood leukaemia and
various forms of cancer but they also have the potential to treat other
serious diseases in future.
These cells can be harvested easily from the umbilical cord of newborns
at no risk to mum or baby and this has prompted the launch of at least
four private stem cell banks in the UK. Stem cells banks have been operating
for years in the US and in some states it is law to inform new parents
about this potentially life-saving facility.
Privately-run ’tissue banks’ are now giving UK parents-to-be the option
of having stem cells collected from their baby’s umbilical cord straight
after the birth and stored for up to 20 years, as a sort of ‘living health
insurance’ against possible future disease. At least one company now also
offers an adult service, where stem cells are taken from bone marrow instead
of umbilical cord blood.
‘Stem cells are already being used to treat blood diseases such as leukaemia
but they have an amazing potential for the future too,’ says Stephen Baines,
Sales and Marketing Manager of Future Health Technologies the only UK
Private Cord Blood Bank to be accredited by the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare
products Regulatory Agency) and the HTA (Human Tissue Authority).
Prices vary for storage but you can expect to pay anything from around
£900-£1,500 to have your baby’s stem cells prepared, frozen
and stored for up to 20 years under strict laboratory conditions, while
costs for an adult start at around £2,000 upwards.
Stem cells are the original building blocks of life for humans as they can
turn themselves into the many different types of cells needed to make up
a person, from skin tissue to major organs like the heart and lungs. They
help an embryo in the womb develop into a fully grown baby in just nine
months and are found in huge numbers in the blood that flows through the
umbilical cord.
These stem cells can be harvested easily at birth: separated from the
blood sample and deep frozen and stored for up to 20 years. If that person
then falls ill with a condition that could be helped or even cured by
using their stem cells, they can be thawed and reused in future.
Most diseases involve the death, destruction or damage of healthy cells,
for example, cardiac cells in heart disease and pancreatic cells in diabetes,
and research being done now suggests, although hasn’t proved, that stem
cells could, in future, be implanted at sites of damage to engineer replacement
tissue. However, stem cells are already used to help after transplants
and to treat leukaemia and other blood diseases effectively.
The storage process
If you’re pregnant and are considering storing your baby’s stem cells, the
first thing to do is to contact a company offering the service for advice.
You’ll also need to check with your local maternity hospital or midwife
to make sure they can collect an umbilical cord blood sample, as some health
authorities are seemingly not keen for their midwives to carry out this
procedure.
Around 30 days before the birth or up to seven days afterwards, you’ll
need to have some blood tests done according to strict guidelines from
the Department of Health, to check that your baby’s stem cells will be
healthy enough to store and protect against cross contamination of blood
samples. Some of these tests, such as the one for HIV, are routine in
pregnancy anyway but the blood tests will also need to be repeated six
months after your baby’s birth.
Nearer to the birth, your chosen company will then send you a sterile
collection kit and your midwife will use this to collect a blood sample
from the umbilical cord once she’s sure you’re both doing well. This sample
is then sent by courier to the relevant laboratory where your baby’s stem
cells will be separated from the blood, frozen and stored, again according
to strict guidelines.
Are there any risks?
No. The blood is taken from the umbilical cord which is normally just discarded
after the birth and the midwife will only collect once she is happy that
mum and baby are both okay. Your baby no longer needs this excess blood
anyway so think of it as a useful surplus that just happens to be an amazing
source of stem cells from your baby.
However, stem cell extraction for adults is much more invasive (see The
alternatives, below) as it requires taking a sample of bone marrow under
local anaesthetic.
The alternatives
It used to be thought that collecting stem cells was a one-off opportunity
at birth but at least one company is now offering the collection and storage
of stem cells from young people and adults, using their bone marrow (as
long as it’s healthy).
The sample is taken under local anaesthetic, usually from the hip as
it’s one of the largest bones in the body and rich in bone marrow, another
rich source of stem cells. There’s no real risk in the procedure and it
requires a very short recovery period of an hour or so. The stem cells
can be stored for 10 years or more and could potentially help with health
problems, such as heart disease, in later life.
However, there is some debate among experts about the purity of stem
cells taken from children and adults as they will have been exposed to
environmental factors whereas umbilical cord stem cells are ‘pure’ in
the sense that they haven’t had the same exposure over a period of years.
Bone marrow transplants are already used to treat diseases, such as leukaemia,
as they provide a rich source of stem cells too but it’s notoriously difficult
to get an exact donor match with bone marrow whereas using your own stem
cells means little or no chance of rejection.
The ethics
Morally, there’s no real concern about stem cell extraction and storage
from bone marrow or the umbilical cord as they’re essentially by-products
from the body or the birth.
However, the ethics become complex when it comes to the separate issue
of using cloned embryos for stem cell research, currently being undertaken
using strict guidelines from the Medical Research Council. Up until now,
research has centred on using unwanted embryos after IVF treatments but
now cloning has enabled scientists to create embryos under strict licence
from the Government, to use them for research purposes over a limited
number of days. Supporters point out that such research has the potential
to unlock cures for various serious and even life-threatening diseases,
such as Parkinson’s but opponents are opposed to what they see as the
artificial creation of life purely for research.
Why we did it – a couple from Radcliffe on Trent tell their story
Tushar Majithia, 36 and Elizabeth Harrison, 34, from Radcliffe on Trent
had their baby daughter’s stem cells harvested when she was born recently
at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham. Mr Majithia and his partner Elizabeth
had read about one of the companies offering this service, Future Health
Technologies, on the internet and decided to go ahead just three weeks before
their baby was born.
Mr Majithia said he felt the procedure provided an insurance policy for
his daughter Aniella’s future health and that the more he had read about
it, the more he’d thought it was a good idea. ‘If Aniella were to develop
a condition like leukaemia, these cells could be used to help her,’ he said.
‘I felt that this was a relatively low cost for something that could save
her life in future.’
More information
o Visit the Department
of Health website
o Medical Research Council, for info on research
into stem cell medical research
o For impartial information on the subject visit www.parentsguidecordblood.com
o Future Health Technologies,
tel: 0870 874 0400
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