What is the Importance of Cord Blood Banking for the Mixed Race Family?

Stem cell research continues to make exciting advances. Cord blood stem cells have been used to treat cancer, blood disorders, and immune deficiencies. As stem cell therapies become more advanced, more conditions will be treated successfully.

In the case of a stem cell transplant, patients have three options: bone marrow, circulating blood, or cord blood. All healthy adults can use the first two options, but cord blood can only be collected and stored at birth. With cord blood, transplant patients can be matched much easier than with adult donors. However, finding stem cell matches for certain populations who need them is challenging. People of mixed races and ethnic minorities have a harder time matching donated cells.

Patients of mixed ethnicities and patients whose ethnic backgrounds are less well represented in worldwide databases of unrelated donors have a harder time finding appropriate matches, and these patients often can't get transplants. Umbilical cord blood banks have been targeting minorities in an attempt to make their inventory more diverse and reflect the bank's needs. Yet, it's not clear whether capturing particular ethnic groups in umbilical cord blood bank inventories affects quality.

Cord blood can be banked in different ways. Cord blood can be donated to a public bank to be used by anyone who needs it, or stored in a private bank for future use by your family. Once you donate cord blood to a public bank, you lose all ownership rights over it. As a result, if your children or family members need cord blood, there is no guarantee that they will have access to those cells.

Caucasian cord blood units make up the majority of cord blood units in most public banks. That's why private banking is particularly useful to families struggling to find a match through a traditional public bank. Finding a match in a public cord blood bank is more difficult for ethnic minorities and people of mixed race.

If the family chooses a private cord blood bank, mixed-race families have a greater chance of obtaining cord blood banking benefits. These families get to keep the cells, preserving their rights to use them. Every child is a perfect match for their own cells, and every family member is a strong match for them.

Every year, nearly 18,000 children and adults could benefit from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplants, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But only 60% of people seeking a transplant are matched. Expecting parents from every race should be aware of cord blood banking and decide if it's a good choice for their family.

Anja Health can be the perfect option for a private cord blood bank if you're a mixed race or from an ethnic minority. We have made the process as user-friendly and affordable as possible and will take care of providing you with the kit, which you take with you when giving birth. Then, in our lab we will manually extract all of the stem cells so we can store them for you for generations to come!