RCOG Statement On The Setting Up Of The Virgin Health Bank

February 2, 2007 – 2:20 pm | posted in Pregnancy, Stem Cell Research, Women's Health / OBGYN

This initiative sets out some novel concepts which accord with the RCOG guidelines Umbilical Cord Blood Banking (Opinion Paper 2) published in June 2006. We are pleased with the honesty of the Health Bank statement that the likely need of a child in a low risk family for its own cord blood as a personally assured alternative to bone marrow transplantation for serious haematological conditions is remote.

This reinforces our recommendation that there is little evidence to recommend private cord blood banking for this purpose. However, the intention to develop a substantial bank of cord blood available internationally to cord blood registers is to be applauded. The RCOG has supported strongly the need for an increase in public banks and international accessibility which the Virgin Health Bank sets as one of its priorities.

Our prime concern remains the process of collection of the cord blood and the health of mother and baby. It is imperative that the collection should not in any way compromise the attention of the carers to the delivery, and ideally the sample should be collected by a trained third party once the placenta has been delivered. This will also reduce the likelihood of bacterial contamination of the sample which would render it useless for storage. Further dialogue with the profession and involved Maternity Units is essential.

Professor Peter Braude, chair of the RCOG Scientific Advisory Committee, said, “Regenerative medicine holds great promise for future management of many diseases, and cord blood stem cells might fulfil that promise if they can be expanded and grown successfully in large numbers. So far this has not been the case, but it may change in the future. This proposal provides a long term insurance lottery that may or may not prove to be successful. However in the wake of the personal storage of a teaspoonful of stem cells for the child itself, is the possibility of a significant increase in the availability of larger cord blood samples for all through a form of public banking.”

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
http://www.rcog.org.uk