Ethiopian Review

Last week, the Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, signed the state’s Cord Blood Education Bill (HB85) into law requiring the State Department of Health to publish information on its website about cord blood stem cells and parents’ options of preserving them.  The new law also requires prenatal care physicians to educate expectant parents about their options early enough in pregnancy so that they can make an informed decision about whether to privately bank their child’s newborn stem cells or donate them to a public bank.

With the passage of the Virginia law, 18 states — representing two-thirds of the U.S. population — now benefit from state-endorsed education on cord blood stem cells and the private and public cord blood banking options available to parents. 

The increasing number of states to enact cord blood education legislation stems from recommendations that were first issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2004.  In a comprehensive report to Congress analyzing the issues involved with creating a national banking program, the IOM included two key recommendations highlighting the need to help all expectant parents make an informed choice about the storage or disposal of their newborn's cord blood stem cells and to provide education on all cord blood banking options prior to labor and delivery:

According to Dr. George Bronsky, OB-GYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist at Fairfax Hospital, parents have the right to informed choice:

“Because expectant parents have only one opportunity to preserve their child’s cord blood, they have the right to be educated about their options,” he said.  “There are many current therapeutic uses for these cells, and research is already underway that may soon lead to treatments using a child’s own cord blood for conditions such as juvenile diabetes and cerebral palsy. Despite the value of these cells, published data shows that three out of every four pregnant women consider themselves only ‘minimally informed’.”

- EthiopianReview.com