STOP DUMPING LIFE SAVING UMBILICAL CORD BLOOD

Cord blood comes from the umbilical cord and placenta and is often discarded after birth.

•Cord blood has been shown to treat more than 80 different diseases - cancers, immunodeficiencies, bone marrow failure, blood disorders and metabolic disorders.
•Blood-producing stem cells (called haematopoietic stem cells) are present in cord blood. The cells are 'unspecialised', they have the ability to develop into those parts of the blood that the patient's body requires; whether red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets.
•It shows an extremely high success rate in transplants.
•It's non-invasive procedure which doesn't affect you or your child
•Currently tens of thousands of litres are dumped every year.
•There are only 10 hospitals in the UK that offer cord blood donation.
•All of which are in England.
•That's just 6% of England's hospitals!
•There are over 700,000 births in the UK each year!
•With just 50,000 cord blood donations 80% of the transplants required in the UK could be met!!

I had no idea such a thing was possible until registering for stem cell donation with Anthony Nolan and I've since discovered that there are so many more people like me who have no idea they could donate!

I want there to be a vast increase in the awareness of this procedure, with hospitals UK wide supporting it!!

I want pregnant women to be given this information as standard so they can make this choice to save lives rather than their cord stem cells being discarded!!

It makes no sense to me that this information is not made readily available when we all as mothers have the ability to save the life of another human being!

Please sign this petition and help this become a choice that is given directly to every pregnant woman in the UK and together we can prevent the unnecessary loss of so much life to these awful diseases!!