World Cord Blood Day
November 15 is World Cord Blood Day, and the impact our families have had on others around the world is indeed inspiring.
Would you like to make a difference? If you want to know the simplest way that all CBR client families can help contribute to research, here it is:
By joining the Family Health Registry community and filling out the Family Health Questionnaire every year.
The Family Health Questionnaire keeps us informed about conditions common among CBR families. We use this information to help guide our future research efforts. Completing your questionnaire helps us alert you to future research opportunities or information that may be relevant to you.
So filling out your Family Health Questionnaire helps us continue to be your family’s trusted partner for life!
The LUSTRE program
Additionally, if applicable, we’ll invite you to participate in our Longitudinal Umbilical Stem cell monitoring and Treatment REsearch (LUSTRE®) study. That way, you can contribute to research aimed at better understanding the conditions that affect your family.
Take cerebral palsy, a health condition caused by a brain injury or lack of oxygen in the brain before birth or during the first few years of life. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cerebral palsy affects roughly 1 in every 323 children in the United States.
In a recent study, CBR researchers compared patients with cerebral palsy enrolled in our LUSTRE® program to patients with cerebral palsy in the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network.
Their findings? While CBR’s families differed from the CDC’s families in terms of demographics, they had similar clinical profiles. Thus, researchers conclude, the LUSTRE program may be a “valuable source of data” to help researchers understand cerebral palsy as a condition (and its potential preventions or treatment options) in the future.
In general, the LUSTRE research study helps us better understand different conditions for which newborn stem cells are being investigated as a potential treatment option. Families who join LUSTRE also receive a confidential Family Data Report that shows how their personal experience compares to other participating CBR families.
This World Cord Blood Day, please consider filling out your Family Health Questionnaire. It only takes a minute, and the future payoffs could be huge!