Anxiety goes hand-in-hand with parenting. From the moment you leave the hospital with your bundle of joy, to your teenager going on their first holiday with friends or moving out of home.

And that anxiety can begin long before the birth of your baby. The list of things parents-to-be need can seem never-ending; from cribs, muslins and clothes to car seats and buggies. But one thing many parents may not realise is definitely worth investing in is a paediatric first aid class. The skills they will learn will stay with them for much longer than a changing bag or bouncy chair.

Every parent will benefit from investing in this type of course. It can do many things for you, beyond just teaching you how to react in an emergency.

For new parents, every little detail is critical and worrisome. A first aid class teaches parents how to spot and deal with everything from a fever to meningitis. Having this type of training can give a parent the confidence to make better decisions for the child in that moment. Instead of panicking and worrying about what to do, the parent knows how to spring into action to provide the individual with the care he or she needs in that second. This saves lives.

New babies are rarely far from their parents so it is likely they will be the first responders in times of emergency. This is especially important in time-sensitive situations such as choking, drowning, strangulation, or a bleeding wound when it’s crucial for you to act fast and act right.

A first aid class can also teach new parents about how to baby-proof their home, which is where many accidents occur. The living room or dining room is where most accidents happen but it is the stairs or kitchen where the most serious incidents take place. A class can help you prevent and deal with scalds and burns, poisoning by bleach or medicines, falls and choking.

It will also teach you about the less obvious dangers to consider such as how dummies can be a health risk and what to consider when using car seats.

Every child is bound to get hurt at some point because they are always on the go. Life is a big adventure, with so much to explore and examine. As your child learns about its surroundings, so should you learn how to protect them.

About Daisy First Aid:

Mother of three Jenni Dunman set up Daisy First Aid four years ago after she stopped her friend’s daughter from choking on a cookie in a cafe. Working as a police officer at the time, Jenni realised that many parents lacked the first aid skills she had and wanted to do something to help educate and empower them.

Jenni has grown her business from tabletop to a multi-award winning company. She is now considered a paediatric first aid expert, featuring in numerous publications and working with celebrity parents to promote the importance of this training.

Jenni says: “We train thousands of parents every year and when you get that call to say a parent saved their child’s life thanks to our class, that is the most unbelievably emotional feeling. We are all so passionate about the importance of first aid and absolutely love what we do.”

Daisy First Aid offers fun and fear-free first aid courses designed specifically for parents, grandparents and child carers. In a two hour class, which takes place in the attendee’s own home or local venue, the world of emergency first aid unfolds. Participants interact and learn the skills they need to save a life and to treat the most common accidents and emergencies with CPR, anaphylaxis, seizures and meningitis, just some of the issues covered.

Babies and breastfeeding are very welcome too.

https://www.daisyfirstaid.com/

As Cord Blood Awareness Month draws to a close we will be taking a look at the differences between banking cord blood in a family bank and donating cord blood to a public bank.

Because cord blood banking in the UK does not yet have the profile it deserves, there are still many misconceptions surrounding the different ways in which you can store your baby’s cord blood.

Cord Blood Facts:

•The UK banks less than 1% of the cord blood available from over 800,000 births each year, Singapore banks 25%.

•Up to 70% of people who need stem cell/bone marrow transplants will not find a match.

•Your baby’s cord blood is a perfect stem cell match for your baby.

•80% of transplant requests would be met if the UK saved just 50,000 cord blood units.

What is Cord Blood Donation?

When you donate your baby’s cord blood you are giving it away; it could be used for a variety of things. It could be used for research to advance or discover therapies for illness or disease.  It could also be used to save the life of a stranger in need of a stem cell transplant.  However, you would have no say in how the cord blood you donated is used; that would be the decision of the cord blood bank you donated it to.

Donating cord blood in the UK is not an option for most women.  This is primarily because cord blood donation is only routinely available at 10 UK hospitals. During busy periods it may not be possible for your baby’s cord blood sample to be collected.

The criteria for donating cord blood is strict; it is not compatible with home births, delayed clamping or with any birth where the baby is born before 37 weeks exactly.  If you meet the criteria and are able to donate cord blood, once it has been donated it is irretrievable.  Cord blood is donated anonymously, which means should your baby need it in the future you will not have access to it.  However, in the event your baby needs a stem cell transplant in the future, the best possible match would be found via the public registry.

It is also worth considering that cord blood which is donated is not used for the wide variety of treatments that privately stored cord blood is.  Donated cord blood is generally limited to the treatment of blood disorders, metabolic conditions, and cancers.  Regenerative therapies are not currently available with donated cord blood units.

However, while cord blood donation has restrictions to how it can be used, it is free of change and could still be used to save the life of someone in need.

What is Family Cord Blood Banking?

Family banking is a completely different service to cord blood donation.  When choosing to bank your baby’s cord blood in a family bank it will be stored for the exclusive use of your baby and your baby’s family.  You will have complete control over your baby’s cord blood sample.  When choosing to store cord blood in a family bank, you can choose a variety of settings to give birth.  As family cord blood banks act as third parties and have a third party arrangement with many hospitals, you can choose to give birth in over 200 NHS and private hospitals.  Family banking is also compatible with caesarean sections, home births, multiple births and even with births where the mother wishes to delay cord blood clamping.

In addition to flexibility when giving birth, family cord blood banking also offers a wider variety of uses.  Cord blood stored in a family bank can be used in regenerative therapies.  It is worth noting that 82% of autologous cord blood therapies currently performed are for the treatment of brain injuries including traumatic brain injuries, acquired brain injuries and cerebral palsy ^[1].

Family banking remains the only way to ensure access to the full range of approved therapies and clinical trials.

While there is a charge for family banking this is negligible for the peace of mind and medicinal access that it offers.  Currently Cells4Life’s Cells+  package equates to less than £65 per year for 25 years storage, you can find out more here.

April 10th is National Sibling Day and it’s also the perfect time to discuss siblings and cord blood.

There are many benefits to storing cord blood for your baby but what if you already have children and you didn’t know about cord blood banking when they were born? Should you still bank the cord blood of your future children? Let’s find out more…

Sibling cord blood has played an important role since the inception of cord blood transplantation for treatment. In fact, the world’s first cord blood transplant in 1988 used sibling cord blood. Matthew Farrow (pictured with his wife and son), a boy with Fanconi Anaemia, was treated with his new-born sister’s cord blood. The transplant was a success, he is still alive and well today. Something that would have been unthinkable without his sister’s cord blood. Since that first cord blood transplant over 30,000 stem cell transplants using cord blood have taken place.

Another child who received sibling cord blood is Carole Mulumba. Unfortunately, Carole suffered from Sickle Cell Anaemia, a painful and potentially fatal condition. When her mother became pregnant, her physician advised that the cord blood should be collected. Carole is African American and there is a shortage of suitable stem cell donors from black, ethnic minority and mixed heritage backgrounds. Thankfully, siblings have a 25% chance of being a perfect HLA match and Carole found her perfect stem cell match in her brother.

For the Mulumba family, choosing to store the cord blood of their second child was an easy decision. While they hadn’t stored Carole’s cord blood, there was an obvious need to store their son’s as Carole needed treatment for a serious illness. But what if you don’t have an immediate need for cord blood and you have older children who you didn’t store cord blood for? This scenario faced Tonya Morris.

When Tonya Morris was pregnant with her fifth child she discovered the benefits of saving cord blood. Unfortunately, Tonya hadn’t known about cord blood banking with her first four children but once she discovered the possibilities, she decided it was something she would do. In her mind it was an insurance policy, one she hoped the family would never need. Tonya gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Sparrow, and her cord blood was collected and stored. Life continued as normal, but then the unthinkable happened.

Sparrow was just 20 months old when she fell into a pool of water and almost drowned. She was without a pulse for over 45 minutes and doctors prepared her parents for the worst. Thankfully she survived and because her parents decided to bank her umbilical cord blood she was able to enrol on a clinical trial a Duke University. Improvements in Sparrow’s health began to appear almost immediately after the trial procedure. Today she is a healthy child.

Thankfully, Sparrow’s cord blood was there when she needed it and there was a clinical trial available for her to enrol into. The clinical trials headed by Joanne Kurtzberg at Duke University have generally focussed on using a child’s own cord blood to treat brain injuries and cerebral palsy. However, a pioneering clinical trial taking place in Australia will investigate the application of sibling cord blood in cerebral palsy. The trial will use sibling cord blood of the participants who have had their cord blood stored in private banks. The publicity around the trials at Duke may have had a direct impact on the amount of parent’s banking sibling cord blood for their children with cerebral palsy. It can take years before research becomes treatment but for parent’s taking part in the Australian trial, they now have access to an experimental therapy.

The Bromwich family have banked cord blood as an insurance policy for their children. Despite being a paediatric nurse, Kim Bromwich was unaware of cord blood banking with her first three children. However, during her pregnancy with Leo, her fourth child, she discovered the benefits. They decided to bank Leo’s cord blood with Cells4Life in the hope that medical advances could offer treatments for the rare degenerative condition ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a condition which runs in the family. Kim who has children Grace, 10, and twins Tamsin and Rachel, eight who celebrate their birthday on National Sibling Day, said “Leo’s stem cells are now stored and ready should he ever need them. It was reassuring to know that they may even be a match for his big sisters if ever they were ill.”

Amanda Turner also banked her baby son’s cord blood and cord tissue for her daughter Casey as an insurance policy. Casey was diagnosed with leukaemia when she was just 12 years old. Amanda was pregnant at the time and wanted to store her baby’s cord blood in case Casey needed a stem cell transplant in the future. While Casey did not need a stem cell transplant at this point, Amanda did not want these precious stem cells to go to waste. Amanda stored her son’s cord blood with Cells4Life, who provided a complimentary service because of the family’s exceptional circumstances.

Public banks encourage families to donate cord blood often stating that a child’s cord blood would not be used to treat their own blood cancer. Unfortunately, this can lead to some confusion when parents are making the decision to bank cord blood in a family bank. While a child’s own cord blood may not be used to treat their own blood cancer, it can be used in the treatment of other cancers such as neuroblastoma. Additionally, sibling cord blood can be used in the treatment of a sibling’s blood cancer, like in the case of Keegan Doheney whose brother’s cord blood was used to treat his leukaemia.

Privately stored cord blood can be an important therapeutic resource for many families. The cord blood of a baby sibling could be used to treat an older sibling who is in need of a transplant. It could also be of great benefit to families with Asian or African heritage who are at increased risk of blood disorders ^[1].

Cells4Life have released cord blood and cord tissue samples to treat siblings. In fact, 50% of the cord blood samples we have released and 100% of cord tissue samples we have released have been to treat a sibling ^[2].

Making the decision to bank a younger child’s cord blood when older children haven’t had their cord blood stored can be difficult, but it doesn’t need to be. One banked cord blood unit is better than none. Every single cord blood unit your family has stored not only increases the treatment options available to the donor children but also gives donor children the opportunity to give their siblings a helping hand when they need it most.

[1] Bone Marrow Transplantation advance online publication, 1 June 2015; doi:10.1038/bmt.2015.124
[2] https://cells4life.com/cells4life-difference/cells4lifes-cord-blood-releases/