You are right in the fact that there is more than one option here. But as with science, always a can of worms.

What is usually missed many times is that there is a connection here with cloning and also the larger issue of organ donation.

I have personally had experiance in 2 of these issues.

1. As a person formerlly on life support, my parents were put under a great deal of pressure to "donate" my organs. I was not brain dead.

In fact, tricks were even used to try and gain the organs of one of my sons' (med. personel told my parents that my husband had agreed--they just needed a "co--sign"--all lies).

2. When one of my children was born, I was asked to donate his placenta. What was I going to do with it?? A child was cured of leukemia with his placenta cells.

**The IDEAL situation would be that when we are born our own placenta is saved. If injury and/or disease happens later...we have access to our own stem cells.

It was interesting to note that the umbilical stemcells caused little to no reaction while the ones obtained from embros caused tumors to grow.

What a wonderful day it must have been for this woman to be able to rise from her wheelchair!! I hope research can continue to find ways to do so without sacrificing one life to save another, IMHO.

Stem cells are in marrow. However, not all stem cells are the same. And marrow is located in differant places depending on a person's age.

Red marrow of the long bone is replaced by yellow marrow (which can then under certain situations change back again).

The tumors do not shock me since the older a cell becomes the more specialized it is. Something is telling the cell...this is not natural development. The cell is trying to compensate for the problem. Perhaps the cell still "knows" this is not the same person (the cell membrane may hold a key here).

A stem cell divides to yield either 2 daughter cells like itself, or one daughter cell that is a regular stem cell and one this is specialized stem cell(it is restricted as to what type of cell it can become)

It really is not that simple under the microscope.

There are no easy answers here since there are numerous issues, and numerous "what if's".

I had planned on telling the doctor I wanted to donate it but forgot. I was sure someone would ask me at the hospital. I had NO idea what I was in for giving birth (oh, boy) and didn't even think to mention it to anyone until it was too late and I was already home.

Why would you store your own son's cord blood? I guess I just have never heard of this and I don't have kids, so I am curious. Is this always an option and what for?

From what I've read, there is some controversy here

Some say store it in case your child or family member gets sick (like Leukemia) and they will have a match for stem cells vs. a stem cell bank

Other articles I've read say that it rarely makes a difference if you store your child's stem cells - you can get it at a stem cell bank and the stem cells you store won't necessarily work for your child/family member

My father's coworker has a little girl who had Leukemia. She got a bone marrow transplant that saved her life. The mother told me that while her daughter was in the hospital, there was a child there that had a 100% matched donor who died because the donor decided not to go through with it and they could not find another match for the child (the child was bi-racial - is that the right term?). I wonder if they mother had stored the child's cord blood, would the child have then been able to be cured with their own stem cells?

I assume it is kept in the same type of place that would store sperm/eggs/ivf things.

As far as I know, there is no controvery (morally) in placenta stell cells since usually the issue is not tied to abortion.

Placenta stem cells should ALWAYS (theoretically) work for the person the placenta came from. However, not for just a family member.

The Bi-racial issue may be perhaps the most important one in the situation you give.

I will definitely do it for the next baby.

That does mean that genetically the donor needs to be somewhat racially of the same background.

Not only black, white, hispanic, chinese, ect. But be South African Black or German white, or Equador Hispanic, or Manderin Chinese. As close as you can get.

It really gets down to the nitty gritty of genetics.

**
There has been a movement in medicine to start labelling blood type with race(something I believe in).

Years ago it was done for bias reasons, but really there is some science basis for this.

Interesting thread, as I have wondered how stem cells my help some of us B.B sufferers that have some of the most advanced neurological damage

As well as some of us who show signs of fairly serious immune defecientcys( not the immune supression that is the side dish of lyme)

Admitting that I have only looked into this topic with regards to lyme only **lightly** one of the first things that stopped me short........the need to immune supress upon recieving the transplanted cells--if I recall, this was in regards to recieving bone marrow stem cells, not umbilicial cord stem cells--I do not recall if it was just for the time of reception of the stem cells, or, if you had to be on the immuno-supressive for a longer period of time

MD Anderson has used bone marrow transplants on some of it's most serious cases of MS, with mixed results---or so I have read (Seems like using a cannon to kill a flea, but I have not ever been that seriously ill to have to make such a judgement call)

Anyway....
Using your own stem cells **may** rectify any need for immuno-suppression