Saving you time in your search for affordable cord blood banking
The umbilical cord is the connecting cord that connects the embryo or fetus to the placenta of the mother. The umbilical cord comes from the same zygote as does the fetus and the typical umbilical cord will contain one vein and two arteries. These are buried within the Wharton's Jelly. The vein in the umbilical cord supplies the fetus with nutrient-rich blood from the placenta, and the artery removes nutrient-depleted blood from the fetus.
Once a baby is born the umbilical cord is usually clamped and cut from anywhere from one to five minutes after delivery. There is generally very little loss of blood from the cutting of the umbilical cord and the cutting of the cord does not cause any pain to the baby because there are no nerves contained inside the cord tissue. Some parents choose to delay cutting the umbilical cord in order to allow for more blood to flow back into the baby. This, of course, will result in a total lowering of the amount of blood left inside the umbilical cord for cord blood collecting.
Recently, CBR (Cord Blood Registry) has begun offering cord tissue storage. This new technique involves the doctor cutting a four to eight inch piece of the umbilical cord and putting it into a special cup with preservative in it and the cord tissue being sent by to the CBR (Cord Blood Registry) lab to be chopped up and cryogenically frozen. The reason CBR (Cord Blood Registry) is doing this is because the cord tissue contains a different type of stem cell called the mesenchymal stem cell that has the potential to treat conditions such as multiple sclerosis, and adult diabetes, and muscle, bone and repair of cartilage and human tissue. The entire piece of cord is stored because CBR (Cord Blood Registry) believes that the entire piece of umbilical cord may contain different types of cells beyond the cord tissue stem cells that could have potential therapeutic value at some point in the future.
The Wharton's Jelly is another piece of the umbilical cord that is also stored. The Wharton's Jelly is a substance within the umbilical cord that has the main primary function of protecting and insulating the blood vessels of the umbilical cord. The cells of the Wharton's Jelly are very unique in that they be differentiated, and extracted, and cultured into cell types which are mature, such as neurons. This means that the Wharton's Jelly is also a possible source of adult stem mesenchymal stem cells.
The Wharton's Jelly is named for the British doctor and anatomist - Thomas Wharton - who lived from 1614 to 1673, and who first described the Wharton's Jelly in a publication that he wrote.
Health care providers are not recommended to delay the clamping and cutting of the umbilical cord just in order to help out in situations where the newborn is having difficulty breathing and may possibly need some resuscitation. In these situations, doctors recommend that the OB immediately clamp and cut the umbilical cord and perform CPR if this is deemed warranted. Just because the umbilical cord pulses, this does not guarantee that the baby is receiving an adequate amount of oxygen needed to function normally.