Mom by Choice

Your Baby’s Cord Remnant: What do you do with it?

I just got back from a dinner with my friends, one of which is so pregnant. How can someone be “so pregnant” you ask? Well, let’s just say when you see a girl who is “so pregnant”, you will know. ^_^

One of the topics discussed included the keeping of a baby’s umbilical cord; yes, that soft tissue that is discarded when a child is born. Well, in our culture, this is kept as a keepsake; pasted on a scrapbook for immortalization, or hung on walls (for more superstitious families).

What we failed to talk about was that this tissue and the blood inside it can be preserved and used for various medical purposes later on. Here’s a story of how this works: Read about one family that was helped by their decision to preserve their child’s cord blood using Cryo-Cell. Here’s how to do it ENROLL, and here are some SPECIAL OFFERS.

Some women prefer to keep the remnants of their child’s cord in a photo album when it dries up. I didn’t though, as I was scared of how a rotting tissue will be regarded by microbes that abound in our immediate environment. So I got rid of it (gasp!).

I am not superstitious nor too sentimental about it, and I also did not know about services that work to preserve blood and tissue from umbilical cords. If I had known, though, I would have enrolled.