Lots of people are talking about placenta and umbilical cord blood. But what does it mean for your baby and how can you go about storing your cord blood?

Placenta/umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) is the blood that remains in the placenta and umbilical cord following birth. Research has shown that during pregnancy, cord blood is a rich source of haematopoietic (blood) stem cells, which can now be collected, processed and cryogenically stored for potential future use. Cord blood stem cells are the building blocks of the blood and immune system and have the ability to treat the same diseases as bone marrow. The stem cells taken from your baby are a guaranteed match for that child. Storage therefore ensures that the stem cells are immediately available if they are ever needed for treatment.

Although the probability of your child needing its own stem cells for today’s therapies is small, the future of cord blood therapy is promising. If the current pace of stem cell research continues advances could potentially be applied in the treatment of numerous human diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes and cancers (including leukemias) as well as a number of genetic diseases, especially those affecting children.

If you would like to receive further information about the collection and storage process, contact Cryosite on 02 9420 1400. They will send you an information pack together with the enrollment forms.

SMILE – YOU’RE ON WOMBCAM

New state of the art scanning equipment, known as 3-D/4-D ultrasound is providing more detailed and life-like scan of a foetus than the traditional 2-D ones. Dr Stuart Campbell, an obstetrician who has used the 3-D/4-D scanning equipment at a London health clinic for two years, says: "It is remarkable that a new-born baby does not smile for about six weeks after birth. But (that) before birth, most babies smile frequently. This may indicate the baby's trouble-free existence in the womb and the relatively traumatic first few weeks after birth when the baby is reacting to a strange environment."

Medical imagery has come a long way from the blurred ultrasounds only 20 years ago.

This year new scanning equipment in the UK featured pictures of unborn babes apparently smiling, smiles stretching to yawns, repetitive chortles and other intra-uterine movements, blinking eyes and more. First published in London, the imagery was of human foetuses at 26 weeks, and they were far from po-faced. These wombites looked to be having a varied old time in mum¹s pre-natal playhouse by the look of it!

The images were captured by state-of-the-art scanning equipment and it’s unlikely that the full effect of the pictures can be known for some time.

The technology, known as 3-D/4-D ultrasound, also revealed limb movements at eight weeks, leaping, turning and jumping at 11-to-12 weeks, intricate finger movements at 15 weeks and yawning at 20 weeks. The 3-D/4-D scanner reveals more detailed and life-like scans of a foetus than the common 2-D ultrasound that concentrates largely on the internal organs.

The $A290,000 equipment that makes the images possible costs two to three times more than conventional scanners. The machine develops ultrasound so that it can be transformed and shaded to produce detailed surface features from the foetus that move in real time. And it's already improving diagnosis of abnormalities such as cleft lip and
palate.

In report, Mr Stuart Campbell, an obstetrician who has used the 3-D/4-D scanning equipment at a London health clinic for two years, was quoted saying: "It is remarkable that a new-born baby does not smile for about six weeks after birth. But (that) before birth, most babies smile frequently. This may indicate the baby's trouble-free existence in the womb and the relatively traumatic first few weeks after birth when the baby is
reacting to a strange environment."

Whether the facial expressions are evidence of emotional responses or are just physical reflexes, is likely to be debated until, well, maybe until
sound is added - translatable sound, I guess.

Obstetrician Campbell believes the new technology means that some questions mentioned now have a prospect of being answered. "Do babies who have genetic problems such as Down syndrome exhibit the same pattern of activity as normal babies? ... Does the foetus smile because it is happy, or cry because it has been disturbed by some event in the womb? ... Why does a baby blink when we assume it is dark inside the uterus?"

For now, it¹s pretty good knowing what we didn¹t know before, isn¹t it?
I'll settle for a 'smile' from a little angel on Wombcam - no questions
asked!