In The Umbilical Cord Is The Secret Of Life
The miracle of life is as wonderful as it is mysterious. Even today, in the light of so much technology and science at our fingertips, the secret that holds the possibility of a human being pregnant dazzles humanity. A good part of life’s secret is kept in the umbilical cord, since its blood is rich in stem cells.
During the gestation stage, the mother and her child are linked by a cord that is approximately 56 centimeters long ; This extends from the baby’s abdominal wall and is attached to the placenta. Its main function is to carry nutrients and oxygen from the placenta to the baby and to return waste products from the baby to the placenta.
When the child is in its mother’s womb, the umbilical cord is part of its body; Through one of the two arteries that this cord has, the waste produced by the body of the fetus is extracted, while the other serves so that the little body is always nourished with oxygenated blood.
The umbilical cord is full of life
Antibodies are also transferred through this long and useful cord, because near the final stage of pregnancy, the umbilical cord passes, through the placenta and in a synthesized way, the antibodies that the mother of the child has acquired throughout her life .
Likewise, the blood contained in the umbilical cord is rich in stem cells or cells that create life. They are so called because they have the ability to reproduce or create other cells, since they can self-renew, which means that they have the ability to divide and make copies of themselves; in addition, they can colonize, integrate and originate new tissues.
Stem cells have the genetic information necessary to form all the organs of the body and in the umbilical cord blood there are millions of them. That cord that mothers take care of with such care when their baby comes out of the womb is the bearer of a good part of life’s secret.
In fact, umbilical cord blood is the main source of stem cells for children, which are identical to those found in the bone marrow and are key to fighting diseases that can threaten the life of any infant, as evidenced in this article published in Stem cells translational medicine .
So cord blood contains hundreds of cells that can fight some cancers like leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.
These cells also have the power to deal with some types of anemia such as aplastic and Fanconi, as well as other types of diseases such as Hunter syndrome, lupus and severe combined immunodeficiency. Even in Spain they are studying its use to fight cancer in the blood.
In cutting the umbilical cord there are many secrets
The stem cells that the placenta and umbilical cord blood have have the particularity of having immunological immaturity, which, according to experts in the field, is an advantage because it produces less rejection between the donor and the recipient.
Another advantage of the type of cells extracted from the umbilical cord is that, in addition to ensuring an exact match with the cells of the baby from which they were collected, there is a high degree of probability that there is a match with other members of the baby’s family.
The procedure by which stem cells are extracted from the baby’s cord or placenta is not painful and so far many countries have different alternatives to preserve and use them to help improve the health of the child or the family if they need it.
In addition to the fact that the umbilical cord has an inherent richness composed of stem cells, British scientists in an investigation published in British Medical Jorunal discovered that delaying the cutting of the umbilical cord for about three minutes can substantially improve the health of the baby, improve its iron levels and avoid the risk of anemia due to deficiency of this mineral.
In short, his research, added to all the studies that have proven that the umbilical cord hides so many mysteries of life, make this rope that binds you to your baby a precious asset that can be used to improve the health of many human beings .
