If you are expecting a child or you have given birth within the last few years, you more than likely have had someone approach you about the benefits of saving and banking your cord blood. If you’re like many people, you may not have really known what cord blood was or why people would ever want to save it and store it in a secure location. You may have been even more confused when you saw some of the costs associated with it.
However, more and more parents are becoming familiar with cord blood and more of them are saving it for their children. While the number of medical conditions that can be treated by cord blood remains small in nature, people understand that with the advancement of medical science, cord blood could prove to be invaluable in the future if their children fall ill or are injured in some other way. More progress is being made with the use of cord blood on a daily basis, and recent news out of Australia presents some exciting possibilities.
Scientists at the Monash Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne have been studying lambs recently, and specifically they have been studying the effects that cord blood has on those lambs that have suffered brain damage. Many of these lambs saw their brain damage substantially limited and in some cases even reversed, so the team is going to take the next step in working to define which specific cells that contain the cord blood are responsible for this effect.
In addition to the expansion of this study in lambs, the team is going to collaborate with other researchers in a study of humans that they hope will show the same results. If so, then this could signal a possibility for treatment of human infants who suffer brain damage while being born as a result of a lack of oxygen. Many infants who endure these difficult births ultimately wind up suffering from developmental delays, autism and cerebral palsy, all of which have become more prevalent in recent years.
There have been other advances made with regards to dealing with brain injuries at birth, but this one would represent the most promising possibility because the cord blood is readily available to every child who is born and because the effects of the treatment appear to be very quick. The lambs that showed improvement in the recent study showed that progress within 12 hours of receiving that cord blood.
All of this information should be taken into account as expecting parents decide on how they should handle this choice regarding the storage of cord blood. If your child has suffered brain damage because of a lack of oxygen during birth that was the result of a medical mistake, you need to contact the New York medical malpractice lawyers at The Fitzgerald Law Firm today to schedule a free initial consultation.