Nowadays, many women who give birth in hospitals are asked by the cord blood bank staff if they want to save their cord blood. Many women have heard that saving cord blood can be used to cure diseases in the future. However, there are also many people who do not save cord blood. So, is there any use for cord blood? Should we keep it or not? 1. Is cord blood useful? Yes! Cord blood contains hematopoietic stem cells, which can continue to differentiate and mature into functional cells under the right environment. Moreover, the content of cord blood stem cells is relatively high. You may have heard of bone marrow stem cells used for bone marrow transplantation, but the content of cord blood stem cells is several times or even tens of times higher than that of bone marrow stem cells. Moreover, the degree of side effects such as rejection after cord blood stem cell transplantation is also smaller. Therefore, the main purpose of preserving cord blood is to preserve the stem cells in cord blood, which can be used for the treatment of hematological diseases (such as leukemia), immunological diseases, genetic diseases and certain tumors. 2.Can cord blood stem cells be used by themselves? Basically not! Many mothers come to store cord blood with the idea that “if we store the cord blood now, we can use the stored cord blood to treat the child in case of any disease in the future”. Unfortunately, if the child does get a disease (such as leukemia) in the future, the stored cord blood stem cells are likely to be faulty and will incur a high chance of recurrence or even treatment failure when used for their own treatment. Therefore, most cord blood stem cells cannot be used for the treatment of the donor’s own disease. 3. Can cord blood stem cells be used for others? Yes! If the donated cord blood stem cells are very healthy stem cells, then other patients can benefit from transplanting cord blood stem cells. From this perspective, it is likely that the stored cord blood will be used for others in the future. 4. Can a patient use cord blood from more than one fetus? Yes! In fact, the number of viable stem cells in cord blood will gradually decrease during the retention process and will be lost after several years, resulting in failure. In addition, the number of stem cells needed by an adult is much larger than the number of stem cells that can be provided by one copy of cord blood, so it often takes more than one copy of cord blood for an adult to use. 5.What are the pros and cons of keeping cord blood? Pros: The stem cells in cord blood can be used to treat some relatively rare diseases. It is a valuable medical resource. Cons: Usually the cord blood cannot be used for treatment; it is expensive to preserve; cord blood is not permanently preserved and will fail due to the gradual death of stem cells. 6. Should I keep cord blood or not? Regarding the retention of cord blood, let’s see what the authoritative American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Expert Committee Opinion (ACOG 648) says: Cord blood collection should not interfere with obstetric and neonatal care. Patients should be aware that the use of their own stem cells is contraindicated Donors should be informed that the chances of their child or family member having a disease that could be treated by cord blood transplantation are rare Cord blood is not recommended for routine storage as “biological insurance” against future disease The fact that cord blood can be obtained through public or private cord blood banks for any pregnant woman whose family member has a condition that could be treated with a hematopoietic stem cell transplant seems to be clear: cord blood storage is essentially a charitable (or public service) endeavor, primarily for the treatment of other patients. It is not right to have the intention of “treating a disease that will occur to you in the future”. Therefore, we salute you if you are willing to donate your own cord blood for public use, but if you are doing it for “future insurance purposes”, then please consider carefully.