There are hundreds of decisions to be made as a parent and for the first time since sorting out a name (well just about anyway), we’re stuck.
Do we spend $2800 to have our baby’s cord blood stored against the chance she develops a disease that can be cured or improved by the use of stem cells?
The midwife who came to our last antenatal class made a pretty convincing case.
She said with rapidly progressing technology the number of diseases that can be treated with stem cells is increasing all the time and include some cancers, brain injury and many others.
As there are no nerves in the umbilical cord, there is no pain or discomfort to mother or child.
There is even meant to be some sort of tax break involved, but I haven’t looked that one up yet.
We left the meeting with a fairly strong sense that this was something we should look into doing.
But then again, neither hubby nor I have anything in our histories that would indicate a need for this.
Also, that $2800, while it pays for collection and 18 years storage, would otherwise fund quite a few more weeks maternity leave for me to look after the new addition to our family.
Having done a quick web search, I’m slightly less convinced.
Some of the cons include doubts as to whether it’s helpful to transplant a sick child with his or her own cells because it could make the child susceptible to that disease again.
What I really wanted to do is donate my baby’s cord blood.
That way it could either have gone to research or to a sick child – both options would mean our donation was of benefit to someone.
But this option is sadly not yet available in Perth.
I guess it’s that parental guilt sneaking up on me.
What if it turns out we do need it?
I suppose we need to decide if that guilt trip is reasonable or not.