Preserved Umbilical Cord Stem Cells from Toddler may save mother’s life

May 10, 2001

Baby May Save Mother’s Life:  First Ever Newborn-to-Mother Transplant Gives Mom Best Mother’s Day Gift

San Bruno, CA — A toddler in Florida may be giving her mom the best mother’s day gift ever — the gift of life.

Doctors at one of the nation’s leading cancer transplant centers are preparing for a first-of-its-kind transplant where they will infuse a little girl’s cord blood stem cells into her mother, who has chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML). More than 1,500 cord blood transplants have been performed world-wide, but never before has cord blood been used for the newborn’s mother.

The surgery is important because it involves stem cells obtained from an umbilical cord — an important pro-life alternative to obtaining stem cells from killing unborn children.

The family arranged with Cord Blood Registry(TM) to preserve the stem cells that remained in their daughter’s umbilical cord after she was born three years ago because of the potential life-saving benefits of the cells. Stem cells are the building blocks of the blood and immune system and are used to treat more than 30 types of cancer and blood disorders.

The cells have been in storage at the Registry’s laboratory in Tucson, which is affiliated with the University of Arizona, and now give the Florida family the best odds for cancer recovery. Using family banked cord
blood has many advantages over stem cells from an unrelated donor — most importantly, the survival rate doubles for patients being treated with related cord blood stem cells. One reason may be because when tissue is matched for a transplant only 6 major HLA proteins are considered. With a relative’s stem cells, however, many of the minor HLA proteins are likely to match as well, which may decrease the risk of graft-vs-host disease, an often fatal reaction to transplant.

To date, thirteen Cord Blood Registry families have used their banked newborn’s cord blood for transplantation and all have successfully engrafted. Early test results for the pending transplant reveal that the
daughter is a near perfect, 5/6 HLA match for her mother — promising news and a potential gift of life this Mother’s Day.