What Happens When The Umbilical Cord Is Cut After A Baby’s Delivery?
The umbilical cord that connects to the placenta attached to your womb, during your pregnancy, quite responsibly passes the all–essential nutrients and oxygen, from you to your baby and helps the baby grow. After you deliver your baby, the healthcare providers carefully cut the cord to separate you from your baby. You might deliver normally or your doctor might suggest you have an Emergency C — section, your doctor disinfects and punctures the vein of the cord and cuts it a few inches apart by using a sterile scissor. Umbilical cord-cutting is absolutely harmless and risk-free.
Now The Cord Blood Collection Takes Place
After the cord-cutting takes place, your caregiver would insert a sterile needle into the cord and collect your baby’s cord blood in a collection bag.
The Reason For Cord Blood Collection
The cord blood as research indicates is rich in haematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells, which have the potential to specialise in different cell types like white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma, and platelets, during a transplant. With this capacity, the cord blood stem cells have proven instrumental in treating 80 + life-threatening diseases. In fact, these stem cells can treat medical conditions like cancer, thalassemia, sickle cell anaemia, and other blood-related diseases.
Therefore, after your baby’s delivery, the cord blood is collected and sent to the lab for quality testing, processing, and cryopreservation or storage of the cord blood bank.
The Life-changing Decision Of Cord Blood Banking
Knowing the above-mentioned power of the cord blood stem cells, many expectant parents, like you, have taken the life-changing decision of cord blood banking. Once you’ve made the decision half the battle is one. All that now you have to do is choose a stem cell bank — public or private and consider proper storage of the cord blood in liquid nitrogen. While in a public bank, you donate the cord blood for research purposes and to help others, storing the cord blood in one of the best private cord bank would mean, it is the bank’s responsibility to collect the blood and save the blood for over two decades. This is done so that the cord blood your baby and your family can use the blood whenever there is a medical emergency.