Stem cell collection

Replies

• Redpod

  Jan 13, 2008 6:45PM

  I looked into it (only because my hubby has a medical condition) but as i understand it the technology doesn't always enable them to do anything with it just yet - its a sort of "just in case there are medical advances" type of thing and to be honest I'm not sure that it's worth if it. I wonder if it's a bit like cryogenics where you pay a fortune to be frozen when you die just in case they can defrost you one day. Although there are a list of conditions that theoretically can be treated using stem cell technology I'm not sure how many of them are actually treated using this technogogy. There are so many ethical obstacles to modern technologies. I'm sure it's not as simple as they make it seem. If you look they choose their words very carefully e.g. "could" crops up a lot when "can" or "does" might have been used which suggests to me there's a lot of improbables to factor in.

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• diggys_mum

  Jan 14, 2008 6:24AM

  My mum told me the other day that my aunt has paid for her grandchildren's umbilical cords to be stored for stem cells. This was done in Germany, not sure if it's more common there.
  
  I agree with redpod - I'm sure the technology isn't there yet to actually use them anyway (I likened it to cryogenics too when we discussed it!) Also, I thought the research says you wouldn't actually need to use your own stem cells (not that you can use any of them anyway!) so I have a feeling it's all a bit of a con.
  
  I can understand people wanting to invest in something which may help their child in the future but I've not read or heard anything to convince me that this is worthwhile. I'd rather invest the money in my children's university fund which is far more likely to benefit them!
  
  But each to their own. Don't be put off if you really want to do it. Just make sure you've researched it thoroughly.

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