Umbilical-cord stem cells valuable, but usually wasted

Melissa Dribben, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, August 3, 2014, 8:51 AM

At 2:11 p.m. on July 23, Michael Kuttler drew his first breath and belted out an exultant scream. Seconds later, he participated in his first act of altruism - trying to save a stranger's life.

His afterbirth was placed in a bin and handed to a woman who rushed down the hall in Lankenau Medical Center to a utility room. Working quickly, she swaddled the placenta in a cone of paper pads, pulled the rubbery umbilical cord through the bottom, then, using a syringe, plastic tubing, and gravity, spent the next 20 minutes collecting biological gold.

Stem cells from cord blood are an increasingly vital public-health resource with the potential to treat or cure scores of life-threatening diseases. Yet every day in delivery rooms, nearly all cord blood is thrown away.

The decision to donate her baby's cord blood was "a no-brainer," said Michael's mother, Megan Kuttler of West Conshohocken. "If it could help somebody else, of course I wanted to."

Most expectant parents in the Philadelphia region do not have that opportunity.

"Women want to donate, but we can't afford to collect it," said Dennis Todd, CEO at Community Blood Services in Montvale, N.J. The agency - one of only 21 public cord-blood banks in the nation that provide units for transplants - receives an average of five calls or e-mails a week from expectant parents asking how they can contribute their baby's cord blood for the greater good.

The answer is almost always, "Sorry, but you can't."

"It's tough to do a good deed," said Frances Verter, director of the nonprofit Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation.

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Umbilical-cord stem cells valuable, but usually wasted