A Different Kind of Investment

Continuation

Today, I learned about a different kind of investment and a different kind of bank.

What did the endorsers have to say?

Giselle Sanchez: “It is an investment just like bonds, stocks and savings.”

Anna-Lynn Salindong: “It is just like an insurance policy – a biological insurance policy.”

But I was not really thinking about investing and investments that day.  I was going about my own way, staring at the wall of a clinic, when the wall stared back.  On it was a message board and on the board was a poster of a cute baby.

It was a poster for cord blood banking.

Cord blood what???

And I was reminded that I kind of knew about it, a colleague in work having “banked” his baby’s cord blood in Singapore two years ago.  All I know was that the expense was prohibitive.  But I remembered too that my colleague, although sighing and murmuring about all that money he spent for it, thinks that he did good.

Could I? (should I)

To find out, if I could (or should) I called up the facility and set up an appointment to know more about this cord blood banking.

Cord blood or “placental blood”, turns out, is the blood that remains in a newborn’s umbilical cord after the cord has been cut.  Doctors have identified that cord blood, like bone marrow, is a rich source of stem cells, which can be used in medical treatments.  Cord blood is routinely discarded after birth, but a process known as cord blood banking allows families to save this valuable “resource” for potential future medical use.  Cord blood is a rich source of what doctors call haematopoietic stem cells, “blank” immature cells that are primarily responsible for replenishing blood and regenerating the immune system.  It can become all sorts of blood cells: red, white or platelets.  At present, it could heal about 80 diseases, including cancers.

With the rate of research being done with it, its possibilities for healing seem to be limitless.

But there is another way, the bone marrow marrow way, through bone marrow extraction.  Sans any banked cord blood (it came to the world only in 1988), I had a friend who had to undergo it in the hope of healing her connective tissue disease.  She did not paint a very good picture of the “extraction” procedure.

E, let us call my friend E, went to the doctor’s office.  She just took a little time off from work for, what she was told, was a 15-minute procedure.  After all, she asked her dad (who had undergone it) if bone marrow extraction was painful and he said no.  Nonchalant, she lied on her stomach and looked around, at the nurses milling about at her side, at the big needle about to be inserted by the doctor at the small of her back, about to suck out some 1-2 quarts of her marrow.  She felt the needle go in.  She thought it uncomfortable but okay.  At about 4 minutes, she felt steel hitting bone and heard herself scream.  She then heard herself issuing instructions to the doctor to stop the procedure – although she knew that what was extracted was not enough.  She could not take it anymore.

But my friend E need not have undergone extraction of her own bone marrow because she can seek other stem cell donors – except that the sample would have to be 100% compatible and in looking for non-related sources, her chances would have been 1 in 20,000.

On the other hand, cord blood extraction is painless.  It is only extracted when the baby’s cord has been cut.  Use and infusion of the cord blood is also almost painless as it is infused to the body of the patient through blood transfusion.  Miraculously, the cord blood would know where to go and it would, immediately, perform its miracle.

There is only one important thing: there has to be a pregnancy and a new born baby and there has to be an arrangement with a cord blood storage facility and extraction has to be done at the time of birth.

But this did not stop a couple from “conceiving” for their son who was dying of leukemia – just so he would have chance at life.  According to the July 1, 2004 issue of the Straits Times, after being infused with his baby sister’s cord blood, he is now on his way to recovery.

Another, a patriarch from a rich family, promised his children luxury travel and other incentives (aside from paying for their cord blood extraction and storage) if they will bank their children’s cord blood.  This patriarch certainly knows something most people would ignore – that good health, or a chance at survival, is wealth.  After all, chances of a match between siblings is 75% and the baby’s parents, 50%.

CordLife, a Singapore-based cord blood storage facility accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), is opening a cord blood storage facility in the Philippines in February 2010.  Extraction would cost about USD$1,000 and storage would be approximately USD$150 per annum.  I also received an information kit from the Cord Blood Registry, which is based in the United States.  First year fees would be USD$1,995 (net of discounts), with an annual fee of USD$125.

If you are pregnant or expect to be, you can consider cord blood banking.  The life you save may be that of the people you love most in this world, or your own.  You have to admit – it is certainly an interesting kind of investment.

Be rich,

Issa

Article by Issa. Art by D. Copyright 2010.
blog: YouWantToBeRich.com
email: issa@youwanttoberich.com

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