What is cord blood?
Cord blood is blood that remains in the blood vessels of the placenta and the portion of the umbilical cord attached after birth. Cord blood contains red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. But it is also rich in hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells, similar to those found in bone marrow. This is why cord blood can be used for transplantation instead of bone marrow. Cord blood is easy to collect, more likely to provide a suitable match and is stored frozen, ready to use.

Who will run the Rotary WA Cord Blood Bank?
It is intended that the Australian Red Cross Blood Service will run the Cord Blood Bank in accordance with the most stringent standards and regulatory controls.

Who will benefit?
The Rotary WA Cord Blood Bank will benefit everyone. The service will be available free of charge to patients needing cord blood transplants. These are patients suffering from leukaemia and other malignant and genetic blood diseases. It is intended that the Rotary WA Cord Blood Bank will be part of AusCord, the national cord blood registry. This means that WA cord blood can potentially provide treatment for people in other states or overseas as well as in WA.

How will the cord blood be collected and stored?
Trained staff will collect the cord blood from mothers who have given their permission. The cord blood bank's primary collection site will be King Edward Memorial Hospital. Cord blood collected will then be transferred to a purpose designed facility at the Australian Red Cross Blood Service headquarters in Wellington Street, Perth, where it will be processed, tested, frozen and stored until it is needed.

How is cord blood screened?
Cord blood is tested to the same rigorous standards as blood donations.

Why a West Australian Cord Blood Bank?
There are commercial facilities that store cord blood for private future use, although there is currently no public cord blood bank in Western Australia.

Why Cord Blood?
Thanks to advances in biomedical science, blood from the placenta and umbilical cord, normally discarded after birth can now be a life line for someone else.

Cord blood is rich in stem cells. In a small amount of cord blood there are sufficient stem cells to replenish a patient's bone marrow, with all the cells of the entire blood and immune systems. A cord blood transplant can mean the difference between life and death for someone who does not have a suitable bone marrow donor.

The Advantages of Cord Blood
Cord blood transplants provide advantages to both the donor and recipient. The collection of cord blood poses no risk to either mother or child and is both painless and easy.

Stored cord blood will be readily available without lengthy delays. Cord blood provides another
chance of finding a suitable match.

Good Ethics
There is no ethical controversy about cord blood transplants or cord blood banking. Cord blood collection is performed outside the delivery room without harming the baby or the mother. There is no intrusion at the time of birth or interference with the delivery. A mother’s informed consent is always needed before any cord blood can be collected and every donation is confidential.

A Unique Role
A cord blood transplant has a greater chance of success when the donor cells have a close tissue type match with the patient. This means that Western Australia’s particular ethnic diversity needs to be represented on the national cord blood registry to provide the best chance of finding matches.

The Rotary WA Cord Blood Bank expects to play an important role in expanding the diversity of tissue types available on the national cord blood registry including those of Indigenous Australians which are not represented anywhere else in the world.

The Future
Cord blood transplants have opened up a new world of hope and promise for the seriously ill. In the not too distant future, this biotechnology may ease human suffering even further. Scientists hope that stem cells will one day be used to treat many serious conditions. It will take imagination and foresight to keep pace with this biomedical revolution. The establishment of the Rotary WA Cord Blood Bank will help us take great strides towards building a better future.