Just thought I'd share....

I don't know if any of you know about cord blood banking (baby's umbilical cord blood is rich in lifesaving stem cells that could protect your baby or other family members and is a painless procedure done at baby's birth...the blood is taken from the umbilical cord after the baby is born and is stored in cryogenic freezers), but it is an Awesome thing.
I don't know that it's a very well known subject because a lot of the research and procedures are still being done, but it has already done some amazing things (Treats/Cures nearly 70 diseases, including leukemia, other cancers, and blood disorders and Doctors are developing stem cell treatments for heart disease, juvenile diabetes, brain injury, paralysis and more) There have already been many cases of stem cell transplants successfully curing people with diabetes, so the future is looking brighter!
Anyways, I first heard about this 5 years ago when I was pregnant with Jaylee. My doctor asked me if I knew about it because she knew I had Type 1 Diabetes and thought it might benefit me or my family in the future. I really wanted to do it with both Jaylee and Bretten, but we were poor college students and thought we couldn't do it, but I now regret very badly not doing it for them. You just never know what can happen and to me, it is just and extra insurance policy. When we got pregnant with Kaysen and were finally done with school, I knew it was something I wanted to do for sure this time around. So, we did it! It is really like an extra insurance policy for your baby or very good possibility that it will match your other kids and also you, you're spouse and even other family members. With this you know you have a guaranteed match and you don't have near the difficulties you run into with other treatments (Having access to your own family's cord blood has been shown to significantly improve outcomes compared to using cord blood from an unrelated donor).
There is so much I could write about this because I think it is great, especially if you have a history in your family of medical issues. I just thought I'd put it out there for anyone else who might be interested though. If you want more info, you can ask me, or research it on your own. I did a lot of research on it before we banked Kaysen's stem cells and we decided to go with Cord Blood Registry. You can check their Web Site out (http://www.cordblood.com/) and request free information packets and read more about it if you want. If you do decide to do it, I can get you a discount if you're interested. I just think this is a really neat thing and will offer even more in the future. You can also donate your baby's cord blood. :) Check it out!