ASdTorrevieja Information - tourist guide: The Torrevieja’s Hospital is ready to extract stem cells from the umbilical cord 

The Torrevieja’s Hospital is ready to extract stem cells from the umbilical
cord
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A. Michael on 17 June, 2010 10:37:00

The blood extracted from the cord will be included into a stem cells public bank
which will be available to anybody who needs them.

BLOOD EXTRACTION FROM THE CORD, STEP BY STEP:
The circuit starts with the control visits by the pregnant woman to the
gynaecology outpatient's service; a professional will inform her about the
conditions of the program, which consists of a voluntary and altruistic donation
where stem cells are extracted from the cord and taken to a stem cells public
bank available to anybody needing it.
The patient will also be explained about the donor exclusion criteria, such as
being a minor, having previous infections such as hepatitis C or hereditary
illnesses, the use of drugs or a prostitution record, wearing a piercing, etc.,
among others.
When the pregnant woman arrives to the Torrevieja’s Hospital to give birth,
there are other excluding factors for this donation such as a gestation period
inferior to 34 weeks; non traditional labours such as in the bathtub, multiple
pregnancies with broken amniotic sac for over 24 hours before labour or
artificial insemination pregnancies, among others.
Once at the labour room, the midwife or gynaecologist will be in charge of
collecting the cord blood (approx. 75ml); it will be placed inside a specially
adapted container and then taken to a refrigerator to be transported; from there
on, the haematologists will be in charge of its temporal storage and will
guarantee the best conditions of preservation for the blood.
The last step will be in charge of the Comunidad Valenciana’s Blood Blank
(Banco de Sangre de la
Comunidad Valenciana), which will assume the collection and storage of blood
extracted at the Torrevieja's Hospital the same way it does with the rest of the
public hospitals in the community.
The aim of extracting the umbilical cord blood is to preserve it at a Stem Cells
Bank; this way, it might be used later on to produce new blood cells which are
healthy and which can cure people with an ill bone marrow due to a congenital or
hereditary illness or to a tumour process such as leukaemia.
Thanks to this technique, which is relatively recent and jet uncommon, patients
needing a marrow transplant may search for a donor, both in bone marrow donors
as well as in umbilical cord donors.