cure for Cerebral Palsy - Umbilical cord
blondieblue227
Va, USA Posts: 4,509
lucky bastard --- 
__________________________________________________________
Amazing recovery attributed to cord blood
Toddler diagnosed with cerebral palsy shows remarkable improvement
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23572206/
By Bob Considine
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:41 a.m. ET, Tues., March. 11, 2008
Dallas Hextell was already a miracle to parents Cynthia and Derak, after they spent three years trying to get pregnant.
But now he is looking like a medical miracle to the rest of the world.
The 2-year-old son of the Sacramento, Calif., couple was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but is now showing fewer signs of the disorder and marked improvement after an infusion of his own stem cells — made possible by the preservation of his own cord blood shortly before birth.
Derak Hextell now believes his son will be cured of the incurable malady.
“[Dallas’ doctors] said by the age of 7, there may be no signs of cerebral palsy at all,” Hextell told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira while holding a curious Dallas on his lap. “So he’s on his way, as far as we’re concerned.”
For Cynthia Hextell, the changes in Dallas just five days after the intravenous infusion of his cord blood cells are not coincidental.
“[He’s changed] almost in every way you can imagine, just from five days afterwards saying ‘mama’ and waving,” she said. “We just feel like right now he really connects with you.
“It just seemed like a fog was over him before, like he just really wasn’t there. There was kind of, like a glaze in his eyes. Now, as you can see, you can’t get anything past him.”
A difficult start
The joy of Dallas’ birth in 2006 was met with gradual heartbreak as he was unable to feed from his mother. He was constantly crying and rarely opened his eyes. At five months, Dallas had trouble balancing himself and his head was often cocked to one side.
The Hextells switched pediatricians when Dallas was eight months old and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy — a group of nonprogressive disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and to maintain balance and posture.
Various studies show that the damage to the motor-control centers of the young, developing brain that causes CP occurs during pregnancy, although there are smaller percentages of the disorder occurring during childbirth and after birth through the age of 3.
“I think it’s important to remind people that cerebral palsy has to do with the motor part of the brain and usually kids don’t deteriorate,” said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News’ chief medical editor. “But they have significant motor problems, which explains why he wasn’t a good sucker when he was breast-feeding as a baby and all of this colicky stuff that sort of confused the diagnosis.”
There is no known cure for cerebral palsy, and the treatments to help manage its debilitating effects make it the second-most expensive developmental disability to manage over a person’s lifetime, behind mental disabilities.
At 18 months, Dallas had very limited motor skills. He could not crawl, clap or sit up and he communicated only through screaming brought on mostly by pain and frustration.
Life-changing decision
During her pregnancy, Cynthia Hextell had done thorough Web research on health issues relating to childbirth and came across a pop-up ad for Cord Blood Registry, the world’s largest family cord blood stem cell bank. The San Bruno, Calf.-based company has preserved cord blood stem cells for more than 200,000 newborns throughout the world.
Hextell said the cost of saving Dallas’ cord blood — about $2,000 and not covered by insurance — was off-putting. But she ultimately registered for CBR, thinking she would rather put up the money and not use it rather than have saved it and regretted it later.
(Cord Blood Registry spokesman David Zitlow said the procedure costs $2,000 for processing and $120 per year for storage.)
“We had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but it did take us three years to get pregnant,” Cynthia Hextell told Vieira. “It was a good chance he was going to be our only child, so that was one thing that if we were going to do it, this was our only chance.
“Heart disease ran in [Derak Hextell’s] family. I was adopted, so I knew if we ever needed something, Dallas and I were the only ones [who could provide a genetic match]. So those were things [we considered], but nothing like I thought something was going to be wrong with my child. Literally, it took us until about two weeks before our due date to make the final decision because it is expensive.”
After Dallas was diagnosed, the Hextells traveled to Duke University, where doctors were using cord blood as part of a clinical trial to treat a small number of children who had cerebral palsy or brain damage. Mrs. Hextell called some of the parents of the children and all of them reported tangible improvement in their children following the transplant of stem cells, evidenced in better speech and motor skills.
So the Hextells agreed to infuse Dallas’ own stem cells back into his bloodstream last July, a procedure that took less than an hour.
Within five days, a different child emerged — laughing, clapping, waving and reacting.
“We think [the transfusion] has a real big part to do with it because it was such a drastic change within five days of the procedure taking place,” Derak Hextell said. “It had to be because he wasn’t reaching the milestones that he’s reaching now. He was falling further and further behind.”
“Before he went to Duke, we were trying to teach him to use a walker,” Cynthia Hextell said. “Now he walks with no assistance at all.”
Saving the cells
Although Dallas’ case was not part of a controlled case study, Snyderman said it should not be overlooked in the progressing studies of stem cell treatments.
__________________________________________________________
Amazing recovery attributed to cord blood
Toddler diagnosed with cerebral palsy shows remarkable improvement
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23572206/
By Bob Considine
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:41 a.m. ET, Tues., March. 11, 2008
Dallas Hextell was already a miracle to parents Cynthia and Derak, after they spent three years trying to get pregnant.
But now he is looking like a medical miracle to the rest of the world.
The 2-year-old son of the Sacramento, Calif., couple was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but is now showing fewer signs of the disorder and marked improvement after an infusion of his own stem cells — made possible by the preservation of his own cord blood shortly before birth.
Derak Hextell now believes his son will be cured of the incurable malady.
“[Dallas’ doctors] said by the age of 7, there may be no signs of cerebral palsy at all,” Hextell told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira while holding a curious Dallas on his lap. “So he’s on his way, as far as we’re concerned.”
For Cynthia Hextell, the changes in Dallas just five days after the intravenous infusion of his cord blood cells are not coincidental.
“[He’s changed] almost in every way you can imagine, just from five days afterwards saying ‘mama’ and waving,” she said. “We just feel like right now he really connects with you.
“It just seemed like a fog was over him before, like he just really wasn’t there. There was kind of, like a glaze in his eyes. Now, as you can see, you can’t get anything past him.”
A difficult start
The joy of Dallas’ birth in 2006 was met with gradual heartbreak as he was unable to feed from his mother. He was constantly crying and rarely opened his eyes. At five months, Dallas had trouble balancing himself and his head was often cocked to one side.
The Hextells switched pediatricians when Dallas was eight months old and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy — a group of nonprogressive disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and to maintain balance and posture.
Various studies show that the damage to the motor-control centers of the young, developing brain that causes CP occurs during pregnancy, although there are smaller percentages of the disorder occurring during childbirth and after birth through the age of 3.
“I think it’s important to remind people that cerebral palsy has to do with the motor part of the brain and usually kids don’t deteriorate,” said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News’ chief medical editor. “But they have significant motor problems, which explains why he wasn’t a good sucker when he was breast-feeding as a baby and all of this colicky stuff that sort of confused the diagnosis.”
There is no known cure for cerebral palsy, and the treatments to help manage its debilitating effects make it the second-most expensive developmental disability to manage over a person’s lifetime, behind mental disabilities.
At 18 months, Dallas had very limited motor skills. He could not crawl, clap or sit up and he communicated only through screaming brought on mostly by pain and frustration.
Life-changing decision
During her pregnancy, Cynthia Hextell had done thorough Web research on health issues relating to childbirth and came across a pop-up ad for Cord Blood Registry, the world’s largest family cord blood stem cell bank. The San Bruno, Calf.-based company has preserved cord blood stem cells for more than 200,000 newborns throughout the world.
Hextell said the cost of saving Dallas’ cord blood — about $2,000 and not covered by insurance — was off-putting. But she ultimately registered for CBR, thinking she would rather put up the money and not use it rather than have saved it and regretted it later.
(Cord Blood Registry spokesman David Zitlow said the procedure costs $2,000 for processing and $120 per year for storage.)
“We had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but it did take us three years to get pregnant,” Cynthia Hextell told Vieira. “It was a good chance he was going to be our only child, so that was one thing that if we were going to do it, this was our only chance.
“Heart disease ran in [Derak Hextell’s] family. I was adopted, so I knew if we ever needed something, Dallas and I were the only ones [who could provide a genetic match]. So those were things [we considered], but nothing like I thought something was going to be wrong with my child. Literally, it took us until about two weeks before our due date to make the final decision because it is expensive.”
After Dallas was diagnosed, the Hextells traveled to Duke University, where doctors were using cord blood as part of a clinical trial to treat a small number of children who had cerebral palsy or brain damage. Mrs. Hextell called some of the parents of the children and all of them reported tangible improvement in their children following the transplant of stem cells, evidenced in better speech and motor skills.
So the Hextells agreed to infuse Dallas’ own stem cells back into his bloodstream last July, a procedure that took less than an hour.
Within five days, a different child emerged — laughing, clapping, waving and reacting.
“We think [the transfusion] has a real big part to do with it because it was such a drastic change within five days of the procedure taking place,” Derak Hextell said. “It had to be because he wasn’t reaching the milestones that he’s reaching now. He was falling further and further behind.”
“Before he went to Duke, we were trying to teach him to use a walker,” Cynthia Hextell said. “Now he walks with no assistance at all.”
Saving the cells
Although Dallas’ case was not part of a controlled case study, Snyderman said it should not be overlooked in the progressing studies of stem cell treatments.
*~Pearl Jam will be blasted from speakers until morale improves~*
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
“So I take it very seriously. And I think it’s an extraordinary reminder that cord blood, that stuff that is thrown away with the placenta in the emergency room as sort of medical waste, can have extraordinary applications. We’re all offered it in the delivery room.”
Snyderman didn’t have to convince one person about the promise of those stem cells.
Said Cynthia Hextell: “They’re like gold.”
I can't believe I never thought of that. Guess that's why I'm not a doctor.
i know right. seems like a simple idea.
i bet this story doesn't get a lot of press. :(
girls, save your cords!
'06 - London, Dublin, Reading
'07 - Katowice, Wembley, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
'09 - London, Manchester, London
'12 - Manchester, Manchester, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen
Equally important, let your baby have all of its cord blood. The common practice of clamping the cord immediately after birth deprives the baby of up to 50% of its blood volume. This practice has been shown to cause newborn anemia, hypoxia ( O2 deprivation), low BP among other things. This in turn can lead to cerebral palsy in the first place.
Late clamping, such as waiting for it to stop pulsating, allows for a physiological clamping of the umbilical blood vessels. The arteries carrying blood to the placenta close off naturally first, while the umbilical vein continues to carry O2 rich blood back to the baby for several minutes after birth. This allows for the baby to continue "breathing" after birth, and allows for proper and adequate blood flow to the organs that have until now, required very little blood. Such as the lungs, kidney and liver. Depriving a baby of so much of its own blood leads to poor perfusion in vital tissues, including the lungs.
The mad urgency to cut the cord immediately is not normal. The practice was established because of the unfounded belief that the newborn would receive "too much" blood and that it would become jaundiced. This theory, and thats all it ever was, has been disproven time and again with various studies. Nature intends for the baby to receive all of its blood, hence the delay in natural clamping of the umbilical vein and the almost immediate clamping of the arteries, and the practice of early cord clamping needs to be halted immediately.
Can this help autism? Or is that completely different?
I feel like sharing a thought:
There’s only two things that make me cry.
A few select Pearl Jam songs.
Watching a child with CP.
I don’t even cry at funerals, no joke.
(thanks for those post above)
98 CAA
00 Virginia Beach;Camden I; Jones Beach III
05 Borgata Night I; Wachovia Center
06 Letterman Show; Webcast (guy in blue shirt), Camden I; DC
08 Camden I; Camden II; DC
09 Phillie III
10 MSG II
13 Wrigley Field
16 Phillie II
this is true.
just having a baby is expensive as it is.
Do some independent research about cord blood collection, don't just rely on the pamphlets the company's who charge 135 bucks a month to store it for you. As well as that, look into delayed cord clamping. The better informed you are, the better your decisions will be. Good luck with the new baby!
The big fat corporations are exploiting young people through FEAR. They make lots of money. Hardly any of the cord blood is ever requested.
DO THE RIGHT THING. DONATE YOUR BABIES CORD BLOOD TO A PUBLIC BLOOD BANK. THERE IS NO COST TO YOU. JUST LOOK ONE UP ON THE INTERNET. THEY WILL PROVIDE FORMS FOR YOU AND YOUR DR TO FILL OUT. THEY WILL THEN MAIL YOU THE KIT. YOU TAKE IT TO THE HOSPITAL WHEN YOU ARE IN LABOR. THE DR COLLECTS IT. YOU CALL THE CORD BLOOD BANK AND THEY SEND A COURIER OUT TO PICK IT UP. THEN YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE GREAT THING YOU JUST DID!(besides giving birth to a human being)!
Seriously why discourage stem cell research? Hey religious nuts?
The problem I have with this, is that the cord blood collected belongs to the baby. It is their blood and they are supposed to have it. As mentioned in a previous post, up to 50% of the baby's blood is trapped in the cord when it is clamped early, and early clamping is the only way to obtain this blood. Would a parent agree to having 50% of their newborns blood volume extracted and donated? I know I wouldn't.
and who wants a cord if it's been used correctly and there's no blood left?
If you read up on the current research, there have been countless studies done on the effects of delayed cord clamping. Every one of them has shown the incidence of physiological jaundice in the newborn is no different in babies with delayed or immediate cord clamping. There is absolutely NO evidence to back this up. Pathological jaundice, which occurs in the first 24 hours, is a different matter entirely, and it's reasons have nothing to do with the amount of blood the newborn has. It is related to poor liver function and is usually congenital. The jaundice you see in the newborn that occurs after 72 hours or so, is a very common occurrence and usually resolves itself.
The high haematocrit levels seen in babies getting "too much blood", are compared to babies who have in effect received too little blood, and have been seen as normal values for years because of the routine practice of immediate cord clamping.
Babies of delayed cord clamping are proven to have less respiratory problems, have higher haematocrit and iron counts and sometimes twice the blood volume of those of immediate clamping.
The physiological changes that occur during the transition from fetus to neonate are enormous. The blood volume requirements of the neonate are very different to that of the fetus. The entire circulation reverses during this transition, with various temporary vascular structures shutting down to assist the change over. Prior to birth, there is very little blood circulating in the lungs, kidneys and liver. The placenta performs the function of gas, nutrient and waste exchange and these organs are not needed. At birth though, the blood requirements increase dramatically. The lungs now need to perform gas exchange, and a large volume of blood needs to now circulate through the lungs for this to occur. The kidneys and liver now require a full blood supply to start eliminating toxins and wastes. The digestive tract requires a large volume of blood for nutrient exchange, something that was not required prior to birth. It makes sense, that when babies are deprived of their blood like this, that they more commonly experience respiratory distress syndrome, have depleted iron stores and low haematocrit counts.
When you consider that in the normal reproductive process, nature has perfected it, it is then insane to believe that nature screwed up entirely by ensuring the baby gets "too much" blood and that we need to interfere with the process of natural cord clamping and "fix it". This is not one of natures little mistakes. There is a reason the blood vessels in the cord shut down themselves at different times and it is to ensure the baby receives all of its own blood supply. The jaundice argument is old, outdated and completely unfounded.
THIS DOESN'T GET ENOUGH PRESS! :mad:
Glad you bumped it. I missed it the first time around and it was an interesting read.
surprised I haven't seen this on the networks, it's got Anderson Cooper written all over it
Anderson Cooper as well as Sanjay Gupta.
This is certainly promising it appears. I used to practice law with a fellow attorney who was living with CP. It would be nice to know that the medical community might be close to ending such a terrible disorder; maybe not for adults already inflicted with CP, but for children who can be saved during the early stages of development.
Gibson Amphitheatre (Los Angeles): 10/7/09
maybe i'll bump it every 6 months or something then.
ISN'T THIS LIKE THE CURE FOR CANCER OR SOMETHING???????
TELL ME WHY THIS ISN'T BIG NEWS!