Around the 20th week of my wife's pregnancy, I first heard the term "cord blood" from her. It's primarily used for treating incurable diseases. Considering it as a form of insurance for our child, my wife suggested storing the cord blood. I had no idea what cord blood was and upon searching online, most of the information seemed to be advertisements or promotional articles. Even now, if you search for "cord blood" on Naver, the top results are dominated by advertisements.
Even when searching for successful cord blood uses, promotional articles like "a gift for my child's healthy future" or "how to protect my child from incurable diseases" mainly appear.
Understanding Cord Blood
In simple terms, cord blood is the blood from the umbilical cord. It's rich in hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, and immune cells. If hematopoietic stem cells are transplanted, they can potentially treat diseases like leukemia, lung cancer, breast cancer, and aplastic anemia. Using mesenchymal stem cells, treatments for joint, bone, various organs, nerve, and muscle diseases are possible.
If the total number of nucleated cells in the collected state is less than 1.1 billion, it's considered inadequate. Typically, cord blood collected from a mother is between 65-80cc, and at this volume, the nucleated cell count stands at 1.1 billion.
After preservation and freezing, the standard volume for a pack of cord blood is 25cc. So, by calculation, approximately 300 million nucleated cells are stored per pack. For hematopoietic stem cells, typically, 100 million cells are needed for every 5kg of body weight. Hence, one pack of cord blood might be suitable for treating a child weighing around 15kg. If more weight is considered, one might have to use donated cord blood for treatment.
Types of Cord Blood
✅ Family Cord Blood vs. Donated Cord Blood
Family cord blood is stored exclusively for one's family at a cost. In contrast, donated cord blood is stored in a nationally designated bank without any personal expense.
After getting a basic understanding of cord blood and visiting events like the Baby Fair, one comes across companies like GC Green Cross and Cha Hospital that operate family cord blood banks. My wife and I encountered these two companies at three different fairs, and after listening to their detailed explanations, we leaned more towards storing family cord blood as a precautionary measure. But what if, when needed, it can't be used for our child?
Such sentiments seem to be common. While many foreign countries have a higher rate of donated cord blood, in South Korea, family cord blood storage is overwhelmingly more popular and is on the rise, even though the storage fee is quite high, typically starting from 1 million KRW.
Effectiveness of Cord Blood
The given image lists the storage prices from various companies.
The burning question is: Is it genuinely beneficial to pay these high fees? Especially, are there many instances of successful transplants using one's cord blood? Searching with various keywords didn't yield many success stories, except for an article from 2005 regarding a collaboration between Ulsan University and MEDIPOST. There seems to be a limited number of successful transplants using one's cord blood, making one wonder if it's worth the high cost or if it would be better to donate it for public benefit.
Our Decision
Ironically, before understanding cord blood in-depth, my wife and I had already applied to store our family's cord blood with Cha Hospital (i-Code), paying a fee of 1.35 million KRW for 15 years and even receiving a gift. Initially, I intended to write a blog post encouraging others to store cord blood for their children, showcasing the perks. However, the deeper I delved into the subject and the real-world cases, the more I felt a sense of skepticism. (It felt like companies were exploiting parental concerns.) I plan to discuss this with my wife again based on my findings. But in the end, we might stick to our decision, just as a precaution for our child. 🥲
Journal entry dated March 28, 2023.