There have been many movies and books written involving a sick child, and the parents reproduce in hopes that the new child’s cord blood can help cure their sick first born. Many doctors, and people alike, think this is cruel, being that most often of times the parents get pregnant with a child just to cure their sick one. Often, the cord blood isn’t a match for the sick child or it isn’t enough, and the baby is forgotten about. This is incredibly sad, but at the University de Montreal, a new molecule allows for the multiplication of stem cells in cord blood, and now the single unit of cord blood can help many. This is the newest and safest way to do a stem cell transplant. If in the unfortunate situation that a child is born only for their cord blood, they will at least be able to help many. I’m not saying I agree with the idea of creating a baby just for their cord blood, but the hematopoietic cells will now be able to benefit many, up to 10x as many of the cells can be replicated, and many more lives will be saved (University de Montreal).
Works Cited:
Universite de Montreal. “New molecule allows for up to 10-fold increase in stem cell transplants.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 September 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140918141155.htm>.
You definitely brought up an interesting topic that is gaining more and more popularity in the media today. I hope your able to raise some awareness of this issue through your blog posts. I would recommend elaborating on this topic in future posts and possibly doing a series on them. It’s a topic many don’t discuss and you’ve already gone ahead and done it!
Very good post! I personally have never heard of anything like this being done before but it does seem cruel to simply birth a child solely for the purpose of saving your other child. It’s just very saddening that families have to be put in a position where they have to make a decision like this one in the first place.
This is interesting. I don’t think that it is necessarily good to have another child just for their cord blood or similar blood cells, but I also think that maybe the child they have to save another could be a blessing in disguise in more ways than one to the whole family. On the other hand, what about all of the other ways to receive blood like through donations and blood drives?
I have heard about this although I have never actually read a book concerning the subject. However, I have seen a movie that concerns genetic manipulation of children for desired traits. The movie is called Gattaca and it takes place in a future dystopian world where a man has to face discrimination from society because he isn’t genetically manipulated. I suggest you check it out if you havn’t already: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/