Why Donate?

Every day, there are over 6,000 gravely ill patients searching for a suitable bone marrow or cord blood stem cell match for the treatment of cancers of the blood as well as various other acquired and inherited blood diseases. The National Marrow Donor Program (“NMDP”) estimates that a bone marrow or cord blood transplant could benefit more than 35,000 children and adults with life-threatening diseases each year.

Although cord blood stem cell transplants have already saved thousands of lives, countless lives are still tragically lost because there simply are not enough cord blood stem cell units in the public inventory to provide suitably matched units for every patient in need.

Blood stem cells have been used for almost forty years to treat patients with blood cancers and other diseases. Stem cells are “small factories” that have the ability to replicate or develop into additional cells that can take the place of diseased cells. Blood stem cells have historically been obtained from bone marrow donors. There are, however, numerous difficulties associated with finding a nearly exact match from a bone marrow donor. As a result, thousands of patients are unable to find a suitable match. Public cord blood banking is helping to solve this problem and offers new hope to patients searching for the best stem cell match. That’s why it is so important for expectant mothers to consider public cord blood donation.

The donation of your baby’s cord blood will help to provide stems cells that can treat a patient suffering from more than 70 diseases including leukemias, lymphomas and sickle cell anemia. Please view the list of Treatable Diseases to see those diseases which can be treated with cord blood stem cells.