North Dakota

ND, United States

North Dakota does not have any state legislation around cord blood education, but their Dept. of Health has officially adopted the educational materials from Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation. 

FAQs

What is delayed cord clamping?
Some people feel that the blood in the umbilical cord should be allowed to flow into the baby and that the cord should not be clamped while it is still pulsing.  Medical studies have shown that, particularly in parts of the world with poor infant health care, delayed cord clamping can help protect the baby from anemia (low blood counts) during the first 6 months of life.  However, a prolonged delay will allow the blood in the cord to clot, and the opportunity to collect the blood for stem cells will be lost.  Therefore, if clamping is delayed, it should not be more than two minutes.

References:
Hutton, EK & Hassan, ES, JAMA 2007; 297:1241-1252
van Rheenen, P et al., Tropical Med. and Internal Health 2007; 12(5):603-616
Abalos E., 2009; The World Health Organization Reproductive Health Library
How much cord blood is needed for a transplant?
The crucial thing is not the volume of the cord blood collection, but the number of stem cells it contains. Transplant doctors develop recommendations based on the Total Nucleated Cell count, or TNC, because it is the easiest measure to reproduce between different labs.    For treating cancer, the transplant dose should be at least 25 million TNC per kilogram of patient body weight (1 kilogram equals 2.2 pounds).  The average cord blood collection holds 8.6 million TNC per mL.  Thus, the optimal transplant dose requires harvesting:
1.3 mL of cord blood for every pound of patient weight, -or-
2.9 mL of cord blood for every kg of patient weight

However, as more transplant centers are adopting the practice of giving adult  patients "double cord blood transplants" with two cord blood units, it is less critical for both units to have adequate cell dose.

References:
Reed, W et al., Blood 2003;101(1):351
Barker, JN et al., Blood 2005;105:1343-1347
Eapen, M et al. Lancet 2007;369:1947-54
Rocha & Gluckman Brit. J. Haematology 2008;147:262-274
Delaney, C et al., Brit. J. Haematology 2009;147:207-216
Michallet et al. 2010 Blood 2010;116:Abstract#361
What is the benefit of HON accreditation of the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood website?
Health on the Net Foundation (HON) is an international non-profit under the United Nations that is dedicated to inspecting and accrediting medical websites for accurate and ethical content.  Websites accredited under the HON code are committed to abide by these 8 principles:

  1. Authority - Give qualifications of authors
  2. Complementarity - Information to support, not replace physician
  3. Confidentiality - Respect the privacy of site users
  4. Attribution - Cite the sources and dates of medical information
  5. Justifiability - Justification of claims / balanced and objective claims
  6. Transparency - Accessibility, provide valid contact details
  7. Financial disclosure - Provide details of funding
  8. Advertising - Clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content

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