A lifesaving gift: USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital implements the Cord Blood Donation Program
USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital has started the upper Gulf Coast region’s first Cord Blood Donation Program that could help treat diseases in patients.
By Brittany Otis
The mission at USA Health is to help people lead longer, better lives. That mission is being fulfilled further at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital as it starts the upper Gulf Coast region’s first Cord Blood Donation Program that could help treat diseases in patients.
According to LifeSouth, a cord blood bank and USA Health’s partner in the program, the umbilical cord is rich in blood-forming cells that could treat more than 80 diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma.
“Patients who deliver a baby at our hospital now have a chance to save their newborn’s cord blood, which would otherwise be discarded, to help save a life of another patient,” said Mimi Munn, M.D., professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and maternal-fetal medicine physician at USA Health. “Patients with certain diseases could benefit from this and it’s exciting that Children’s & Women’s Hospital can play a part.”
LifeSouth will counsel patients about their donation. Cord blood donations collected at Children’s & Women’s Hospital, which qualify for potential transplant, will be listed on the website - Be the Match Registry, a global leader in bone marrow transplantation.
“Cord blood units collected at the hospital will be available to patients in the United States and in countries around the world,” said Thomas Moss with LifeSouth. “Children’s & Women’s Hospital is the perfect partner for executing this program as their mission is to help save and impact lives.”
To participate, patients should contact their obstetrician-gynecologist for more information. There is no cost to patients who donate.
Children’s & Women’s Hospital delivers more babies annually than any other hospital in Mobile.
