Mothers Giving Birth Donate Record Number of Life-Saving Umbilical Cord Bloods

Mothers giving birth at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center and The Brooklyn Hospital Center—both members of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System—voluntarily donated a record number of life-saving umbilical cord bloods to New York Blood Center’s National Cord Blood Program last year, representing 41 percent of the Program’s one-year cord blood donations. The Program, the largest public cord blood bank in the world, provides half of all unrelated cord bloods for transplant. Patients worldwide have benefited from cord blood treatments for diseases such as late-stage leukemia, and scientists use cord blood to research promising new treatments. In effect, many mothers are now giving their “gift of life” twice.

In 2002, New York Weill Cornell Medical Center and The Brooklyn Hospital Center donated 1,779 cord bloods to The National Cord Blood Program, with 929 from New York Weill Cornell and the remaining 850 from The Brooklyn Hospital Center. Additionally, the largest single-month cord blood donation in the history of New York Blood Center (238 cord bloods) was made by New York Weill Cornell and The Brooklyn Hospital Center last October. And an impressive 98 percent of mothers giving birth at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center have chosen to donate their cord bloods.

These cord bloods have been used in life-saving transplant operations worldwide, from New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City to hospitals as far a field as Alabama and Brazil. Hospitals are also using cord bloods in research that may one day treat such diseases as diabetes and heart disease.

Cord blood, a source of “younger” stem cells, is commonly used as an alternative to bone marrow transplants. According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, each year as many as 15,000 Americans who need bone marrow transplants are unable to find suitable donors. Unlike bone marrow, cord blood transplants do not require as strict a genetic match, and cord blood is available very quickly.

Dr. Michael Schuster, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and Director of the Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplant Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center, initiated the cord blood program at Weill Cornell along with Dr. Joan Kent, Clinical Instructor of Medicine and Assistant Attending Physician at New York Weill Cornell.

“Expectant mothers now have the chance to give life twice,” said Dr. Kent. “In the past, umbilical cord blood was not used. We now know that this blood is far too valuable to go to waste. A mother can donate her cord blood to the public cord blood bank, or save it for the rare case that a family member may benefit from its use.” Similar to a regular blood bank, cord blood is frozen and kept for future use.

Dr. Schuster has performed numerous life-saving cord blood transplants. Commonly, patients with late-stage leukemia will search in vain for six months or more for bone marrow. Cord blood can be available within 24 hours. After a cord blood transplant and recovery, complete remission is standard.

Dr. Schuster is also one of several New York-Presbyterian physician-scientists currently researching future treatments that use cord blood, such as gene therapy and cell regeneration. These experimental therapies will potentially benefit treatment of a wide variety of diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, and stroke.#

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