Stem cells are the progenitors of all tissues and organs in our body. They are versatile building material , without which our body could not grow and develop, or to recover from injuries and diseases.
When expecting a baby , we are able to derive stem cells at birth.
Stored under special conditions , they can keep their valuable properties for years, thus becoming an important resource for the future treatment of the child and his family.
Two types of cells can be extracted at birth - hematopoietic ( blood from the umbilical cord ) and mesenchymal ( tissue from the umbilical cord ) . They are not interchangeable - the qualities and applications vary widely .
Stem cells are used in medicine for more than half a century , the most popular example of such treatment is bone marrow transplantation.
The cells from cord blood are very similar to those in the bone marrow , but they are superior in many respects - they have a higher potential , which allows the use of lower doses and less mature , thus making it possible to use them in a lower degree of compatibility and lowers the risk of rejection .
Approved therapies is constantly growing in the last decade the number has doubled. Underway are hundreds of new trials as a basis for life-saving treatment of malignant blood diseases , medicine Pinning Hopes on these cells and diagnoses affecting quality of life, such as cerebral palsy and type 1 diabetes.
Today there is still a large group of applications - that of regenerative medicine , one of the newest and fastest growing share of medical science that uses stem cells to restore its own tissues and organs of the patient.
Cells stored at birth, can be used both for the child and family members , when a sufficient degree of compatibility. Six of the ten samples transplanted cord blood in the world are used to treat a sibling or parent. Complete matching antigens can be expected only in identical twins .
In all other cases there is no 100% guarantee.
Collection of blood and tissue from the umbilical cord to extract stem cells at birth is easy and painless procedure that poses no risk either to the mother or the baby.
It is carried out by our own team of bank storage and does not violate the normal course of work on the midwifery team. The quantity of cells is different for every baby and reliable performance every step of the collection and laboratory processing of the sample is crucial for the quality of her
It is necessary to make an informed choice by examining the procedures and conditions of the various banks. First you must make sure that the necessary registrations and licenses.
Stem cell in the country are governed by detailed regulations and the right to perform them only have tissue banks with a valid authorization from the Executive Agency for Transplantation at the Ministry of Health.
The financial side is often a major criterion for many families , so it is better to check whether all costs are included in the price .
In our society there is an underlying view that the storage of umbilical stem cells is prohibitively expensive , boutique service units wealthy parents. Indeed, in the first years in which these services into Bulgaria , the cost of processing and storage for 20 years often was relatively much higher than the cost of similar services abroad. Today this is not so .
Investment in reliable modern equipment , attracting a team of established professionals with experience and positive growth of competition significantly contributed to the ability to offer affordable and reasonable price for a really very specific and high-tech service.
The ease of future parents, this service is offered at several possible financial schemes with 50% discount for the second twin , as well as a second contract with the bank.
What is more important than the price , however , is the reliability of the process of making , transporting , testing, laboratory processing and storage of the cells. Significant advantage by banks that have terms to perform critical processing of cells -the-art technology with the shortest possible stay after birth.
To ensure the security of storage throughout the term of the contract are necessary stkriktni systems for access control and temperature regime .
Each banking cord blood can be used for therapy , whether private banking or extracted from public banks - the only requirement is a sufficient degree of histocompatibility . The advantage of private banking family in this case is that kinship transplants have shown better results than unrelated .
It should be borne in mind that to a large extent histocompatibility complex indicates greater similarity in the same ethnic group . This means that in practice for patients from smaller ethnic groups such as Bulgarian is much more difficult to find a suitable donor in the big banks and donor pools.
In need of autologous stem cell therapy umbilical cord only option is private banking family , as only this way the stored cells remain the exclusive property of the child and are available for future use. Reliable private stem cell banks have technological solutions and control systems using a risk of loss of the sample is minimized.
Widely discussed disadvantage of private banking is that it is not free - in fact , however, the use of bone marrow donor is not free , nor extraction of stem cells from peripheral blood.