Banked blood may be a life saver

CORD blood banking may sound like something out of a sci-fi film but it could possibly save your child’s life.

That’s the message from local mother Becky Bursle, who is telling her story in a bid to raise awareness about the process of storing your child’s cord blood for future use.

Ms Bursle was four months pregnant with her son Will, now three months old, when she saw a program about cord blood banking.

“They were talking about cord blood and how it’s being used to treat cystic fibrosis and other diseases and they had a couple of case studies on the show and the results were just amazing,” Ms Bursle said.

“It got me thinking so I started doing some research about it.”

What she found was that cord blood was being used to treat a number of diseases, from cystic fibrosis to blood diseases like leukaemia.

“For me, it was a case of once I knew the benefits of having it stored, if I didn’t and something happened to Will I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” Ms Bursle said.

“We were lucky enough to have the money to do so and it just seemed too valuable not to do it.”

She said it was a fairly simple process.

“There is a lot of information on the internet. A lot of people donate their cord blood which means it would be used for research but in our case, we wanted it stored for personal use,” she said.

“The hardest part about it in Coffs Harbour is that not a lot of people are trained in collecting cord blood. We were lucky enough our obstetrician was on hand to do it.”

For more information on cord blood banking, visit www.cellsense.com.au.