Whatever your feelings about belly buttons, one thing’s for sure—it once joined you to your mother. The umbilical cord is severed at birth to leave just a small clamped stump that progressively withers and falls away a week or two later.
What you’re left with, in most cases, is a small wrinkled depression. That’s if you have an “innie,” as most of us—90% apparently—do. From this point, the belly button seems to become redundant—other than to gather dust and fluff.
But that’s not the whole story—your navel has more depth to it than just a few millimeters.
The umbilicus is an access point for the vessels carrying blood to and from the fetus. These have come from the placenta and run through the umbilical cord, coated in Wharton’s jelly—a gelatinous connective tissue contained in the cord that insulates and protects them.
“Public cord blood banks operate like blood banks. Cord blood is collected for later use by anyone who needs it. The stem cells in the donated cord blood can be used by any person who matches,” says Dr. Costakos. “Public banks do not charge for collecting cord blood.”
If a family decides to donate cord blood, your health care team will plan to collect the cord blood at the time of delivery. After the child is born, the umbilical cord is clamped.
“The process of collecting the cord blood is painless for the baby because no nerve fibers are in the umbilical cord,” Dr. Costakos explains. “Blood is drained from the umbilical cord with a needle, and a special collection bag is attached. After the bag is sealed, the placenta is delivered. The process takes about 10 minutes.”
Clinical researchers at Hannover Medical School (MHH) have succeeded for the first time in stopping the usually fatal course of pulmonary hypertension thanks to a novel therapeutic approach. A three-year-old girl suffering from so-called pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) was treated a total of five times with mesenchymal stem cell products obtained from a human umbilical cord.
“The treatment led to a significant improvement in growth, exercise tolerance and clinical cardiovascular variables and reduced the number of plasma markers in the blood that can be detected in vascular constriction and inflammation,” says Professor Dr. Georg Hansmann, head of the Translational Cardiopulmonary Biomedicine research group, and lead attending physician in the Department of Paediatric Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine. After six months, not only was there a clear improvement in health, but there were also no undesirable side effects.
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is marked by a pattern of hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder that affects how a person behaves, interacts with others and learns.
Researchers analyzed data from the Boston Birth Cohort, a long-term study of factors influencing pregnancy and child development. They collected umbilical cord blood from 996 births and measured the amount of acetaminophen and two of its byproducts in each sample. By the time the children were an average of 8.9 years, 25.8% had been diagnosed with ADHD only, 6.6% with ASD only and 4.2% with ADHD and ASD. The researchers classified the amount of acetaminophen and its byproducts in the samples into thirds, from lowest to highest. Compared to the lowest third, the middle third of exposure was associated with about 2.26 times the risk for ADHD. The highest third of exposure was associated with 2.86 times the risk. Similarly, ASD risk was higher for those in the middle third (2.14 times) and highest third (3.62 times).
The authors conclude that their results support earlier studies linking acetaminophen exposure in the womb with ADHD and ASD and underscore the need for additional research. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration urges careful consideration before using any pain-relieving medication during pregnancy.
NIH funding for the study was provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The recent study from Burst Biologics challenges existing standards and outlines future safety and potency benchmarks.
The prestigious peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine has announced the publication of the original research article from Burst Biologics (ID, USA) entitled, “Characterization of an umbilical cord blood sourced product suitable for allogeneic applications.” The article provides a comprehensive overview of the quality attributes, clinical suitability and efficacy of BioBurst Rejuv, an umbilical cord blood (UCB)-sourced allograft, defined as a tissue graft from a donor of the same species.