by BabyCenter Featured Expert posted in Parenting

By Kate Girard, R.N. MSN, Director of Medical and Scientific Affairs, ViaCord
It's no secret that cord blood has a long history in transplant medicine, is used today in the treatment of nearly 80 diseases, and has helped change many lives over the last thirty years.1 Now, thanks to researchers who have been continuously working to explore new uses for cord blood, its application has expanded beyond transplant medicine into an area known as regenerative medicine. But how exactly is cord blood being used in regenerative medicine"
In my last blog post, I wrote about a Phase I Cord Blood Clinical Trial for children with autism; the encouraging results were published earlier this year. Now I'm back to share even more results with you, except this time the trial is studying a different condition: cerebral palsy. Let?s take a look at how cord blood is being used in an effort to help kids with cerebral palsy. After a Phase I clinical trial demonstrated it is safe to use a child's own cord blood for cerebral palsy, researchers designed a Phase II clinical trial to determine how effective cord blood may be in treating children with cerebral palsy. The Phase II trial results were recently published and the findings are encouraging.
The results show that when kids received an adequate dose of their own cord blood, both brain connectivity and motor function improved -- essentially lessening the symptoms of the cerebral palsy.2 ...