People who need a bone marrow transplant often have to rely on family members or a private donor to help them out and even then there is no guarantee that the marrow will be a match.
Now, cord blood is providing another option for patients who can't find donors to give bone marrow.
Right after a baby is born the blood from the umbilical cord and the placenta is saved, and just like bone marrow, cord blood is a great source of stem cells.
Calgarian Andrea Powell is being treated for leukemia using a cord blood donation.
It's a good option for her because she has a mixed ethnic background and that makes it hard to find a suitable bone marrow donor.
"There's Welsh, Portuguese, Filipino and Indian, so to find someone with that background would be really difficult," says Powell.
Dr. James Russell from the Alberta Bone Marrow Transplant Program says that most cord blood donors come from the United States and that cord blood is more forgiving because the donor can be unrelated to the recipient.
Canada doesn't have a national cord blood program but there are several private clinics where parents can pay to store the cord blood for their own family.
In Edmonton, a cord bank supplies cord blood to anyone in need and there's no fee.
There are several other private cord blood banks in Canada where families can store the cord blood if they ever need it in the future.
Alberta also has a public cord bank where the donations can be used by anyone.
For more information click on the Cord Blood Society of Canada link.
