What are umbilical cord blood stem cells

Stem cells have very broad application prospects. Because of their outstanding characteristics, they are the main force providing hematopoietic function in the human body. Therefore, using stem cells to treat diseases is very effective. Among them, umbilical cord blood stem cells are the best one, especially newborn babies have the safest and easiest to obtain stem cells. So, what are umbilical cord blood stem cells?

1. What is umbilical cord blood

Umbilical cord blood is collected after the birth of the newborn. 3-8cm of the umbilical cord from the baby's end is taken and ligated with two hemostatic forceps and the umbilical cord is cut. The baby is taken away and handled. The hemostatic forceps close to the mother's end are disinfected and a needle is inserted into the umbilical vein to collect the umbilical cord blood. Umbilical cord blood collection is different from traditional bone marrow collection. It does not require anesthesia, is painless and has no side effects. The placenta and umbilical cord are originally thrown away as waste after the fetus is born. Umbilical cord blood collection is performed after the placenta and umbilical cord are completely separated from the mother and fetus. Therefore, it has no adverse effects on the mother and child. It is a form of "waste utilization and turning waste into treasure." Umbilical cord blood contains a large number of stem cells, called umbilical cord stem cells; stem cells are actually the main cells of the human body, and the human body can be said to be composed of stem cells.

2. How to pair umbilical cord blood

Compared with stem cells in the bone marrow, cord blood stem cell transplantation has fewer side effects and a lower chance of stem cell rejection. In other words, the matching rate between umbilical cord blood stem cells and the human body is very high, with a 50% chance of matching with parents and a 25% chance with siblings. Even if non-relative stem cells are used for transplantation, the success rate is higher than bone marrow, because perhaps only 1 person out of 10,000 has a bone marrow that matches the patient.

3. Functions of Umbilical Cord Blood

At the same time, the concentration of umbilical cord blood stem cells is very high and of excellent quality, about 10 to 20 times the concentration of bone marrow cells, and the cell proliferation ability is also relatively high. Transplantation of umbilical cord blood stem cells is also less likely to cause viral infection than transplantation of bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells because the placenta has excellent filtration capabilities and umbilical cord blood stem cells have extremely high purity.