News
How Maia’s cord blood changed her life and the lives of her family
How Maia’s cord blood changed her life and the lives of her family Maia Friedlander was the first NZ child to be successfully treated with her own cord blood after suffering brain damage at birth. Thankfully her parents, Jillian and Daniel, had this option because they had saved Maia’s cord blood stem cells with…
Keeping Shai’s memory alive
Keeping Shai’s memory alive Frances Verter gave up a career at NASA to dedicate her life to telling expectant parents about the importance of cord blood banking. When her daughter Shai was born, Frances did not know cord blood banking was an option and had no idea of how life-changing these stem cells could…
Saving Frances’ cord blood saved her life
Saving Frances’ cord blood saved her life This is a cord blood story that is both heart-wrenching and inspirational. When Frances Everall’s family banked her cord blood with CordBank in 2002, they never dreamed it would be needed so soon and so dramatically. But at four years old their daughter was diagnosed with a…
What Laura McGoldrick discovered about cord blood banking
What Laura McGoldrick discovered about cord blood banking When the multi-talented Laura McGoldrick discovered she was pregnant with her first child, her journalist persona took over. To sort through the overwhelming amount of advice for new mums, Laura started asking questions. One of the things she wanted to find out more about was…
How does cord blood help autism?
Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy of Umbilical Cord Blood to Improve Outcomes for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder In this interview, Dr Joanne Kurtzberg explains how cord blood is being used in a Stage 2 clinical trial for autism and her hopes for the future. Joanne Kurtzberg is an internationally renowned expert in pediatric…
New cord blood trial for spinal injury
New cord blood trial for spinal injury A clinical trial, using cord blood, lithium and physical therapy to treat the most severe forms of spinal cord injury has been given the green light from the FDA. The experimental treatment does not cure paralysis but is the first to help people with complete chronic spinal…
CordBank stores your baby’s cord blood in Auckland, New Zealand
Behind the scenes at the CordBank lab CordBank stores your baby’s cord blood in Auckland, New Zealand. We’re licensed by the New Zealand Ministry of Health and operate under the most stringent level of quality applied to cord blood banks globally. To maintain security, our lab is a closed site – which means we can’t…
Unexpected discovery about stem cell immortality
Independent groups of scientists investigating telomeres and stem cells have reported what lies behind the immortality of stem cells – what a leading Australian researcher calls “the most unexpected result of my career”. Telomeres are the protective caps at chromosome ends. In adult cells, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides and this…
Handwriting makes kids smarter
Here’s a warning for the digital age – children learn more and remember better when writing by hand. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology has found the brains of children more active when writing compared with typing. It’s been studied a few times and repeatedly found that handwriting gives the brains more “hooks” to…
A world first stem cell transplant for a tiny heart patient
A U.S mother believes her son is alive today because of a world first umbilical stem cell transplant. Little Bennett Harbison was diagnosed before he was born in 2018 with hypo plastic left heart syndrome – a condition his mother Jennifer had never heard of. It means the left side of Bennett’s heart did…
Grandparents are big cost savers when it comes to childcare
New research out of the UK has found grandparents have saved parents more than NZ$30 million in childcare fees. Insurance company Ageas surveyed families and calculated around two thirds of the country’s grandparents regularly help with looking after their grandchildren for an average of 11.3 hours a week and saving each family around…
How long should you keep your child’s cord blood stored?
The answer is indefinitely. Cord blood stem cells don’t have an expiry date and the chance of needing to use them increases with age. According to Frances Verter, the founder of the international independent site – Parents Guide to Cord Blood Banking it doesn’t make sense to invest in the up-front collection and processing fees and then…
Little Emma’s cord blood success story
Emma was born in Ukraine in 2015 but before her birth her parents were told she had spina bifida. Spina bifida is a birth defect in which there is incomplete closing of the vertebrae in the spine and the membranes around the spinal cord during early development of pregnancy. Thanks to one…
Little Lucas and his stem cell transplant
To look at five-year-old Lucas Gutman you wouldn’t know he is living with a congenital heart defect. His mum Jennifer says he is every bit as active as a typical kid – but the Ohio boy was born with HLHS – hypoplastic left heart syndrome – and became just the second such patient…
Can umbilical cord blood help with early autism diagnosis?
Researchers have discovered cord blood of new born babies might help doctors with the early diagnosis and intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) As we know, many children with autism face challenges which affect their behaviour and development. A study by a team at the University of California David MIND…
Smartphones vs children
We know parenthood brings many new things to worry about but maybe we can ease your fears about the impact smartphones can have on your relationship with your children. New analysis published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry shows mums and dads using their phones can actually even improve their parenting…
Understanding teenage boys
Teen boys are a much-maligned group but we’re told beyond the stereotypes of being hard to talk to, always hungry, restless and accident prone they are generally big hearted youths yearning to be understood and valued. Teen boys face biological drivers which make their struggle to venture into independence very real and which…