Discussion points for parents-to-be

Banking the umbilical cord blood
Because the umbilical cord blood contains a very high concentration of stem cells (the basic units in the bone marrow responsible for producing all red cells, white cells, and platelets), it provides a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant should the baby need it in the future. It is also more likely to provide a good match for siblings with a blood-related illness such as childhood leukemia (one child in 1,000), or parents with another life-threatening disease. Also, because the stem cells have not yet built up antibodies, they are more compatible with a greater number of unrelated people in need of cell transplant.

You might consider either donating your newborn's umbilical cord blood to a cord blood bank or storing it for your child's or a family member's future use. The process of collecting the blood involves no risk or pain to mother or baby, since it's collected within twenty-four hours of the birth from the clamped umbilical cord that remains with the placenta. However, expectant parents who are interested in the possibilities should obtain information and counselling early enough in the pregnancy to make arrangements for testing and for the collection and storage of the blood.

The procedure has been adopted in several Canadian and U.S. centres. The Alberta Cord Blood Bank, associated with the University of Alberta in Edmonton, is a public resource that accepts cord-blood donations from hospitals across the country and makes it available to the general public. It charges no fees for collection or storage. The Banks phone number is (780) 492-2673.

Other private programs for collecting and storing this blood have begun in Vancouver and Toronto, offering parents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to store the blood collected from their newborns for future use. Your own hospital should be able to provide you with information about these programs or others that might become available in your area.

Circumcision
Should you or shouldn't you? Some choose to circumcise for religious reasons; others so that the boy's genitals will be the same as his father's. But the Canadian Paediatric Society states that there is no medical reason to circumcise a baby, and several provinces no longer cover circumcision under their medical insurance plans.

Circumcisions are generally performed without anesthetic because there is no general or local anesthetic safe enough to give to newborns and because, up until recently, the medical profession believed that newborns didn't feel much pain or that they wouldn't remember pain. Using the data from three separate studies, researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto analyzed records on vaccinations given to eighty-seven infants between the ages of four and six months. The results of the study, published in February 1997, found that male babies who had been circumcised reacted to the pain of the vaccination to a greater degree than did the female babies or the male babies who had not been circumcised. Another related study concluded with a recommendation that, during the circumcision procedure, a topical anesthetic be used to provide adequate pain control. Circumcision does pose some risks: Infection, hemorrhaging, and improper healing affect from two to ten per cent of circumcised newborns.