The New Zealand Cord Blood Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2010, to help raise awareness of cord blood therapies and scientific advances – as well as making grants to families seeking treatment with their own cord blood.

In New Zealand, three children have already been successfully treated with their own stored cord blood.

In 2007, aged just four, Auckland girl Frances Everall became the first Kiwi child to use her own umbilical cord blood to win her battle against a potentially fatal cancer.

“Saving Frances – beating cancer with courage and cord blood” tells her family’s successful battle against cancer because of the decision they had made at her birth to bank her cord blood stem cells.

Proceeds from the sale of the paper back and e book will go to the NZ Cord Blood Foundation.

In August 2008, Maia Friedlander was the second child to be successfully treated, for a birth-related brain injury at Duke University. Her life changing story can be viewed here.

A number of clinical trials are already underway using cord blood including Type I Diabetes, brain injury and Cerebral Palsy. In March 2010, honorary NZ knight Julian Robertson gave $10 million to fund more trials on the use of cord blood for brain injury – after hearing about Maia Friedlander’s recovery from her parents.

Current research shows that autologous (i.e. your own) cord blood may play a part in the treatment of many other diseases and degenerative conditions including, Stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, spinal cord injury, lung disease, liver disease.