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WASHINGTON (AP) - Flyers in upscale doctors' offices portray it as the hot new baby-shower gift: a registry where friends and family chip in almost $2,000 to start privately banking a newborn's umbilical cord blood, just in case of future illness.
That idea of biological insurance is a long shot that most mothers-to-be can safely ignore, say new guidelines from the nation's pediatricians that urge more parents to donate their babies' cord blood — so that it might save someone's life today.
The guidelines come as the government begins setting up the first national cord-blood banking system, aiming to prevent some 12,000 deaths a year — if public banks can compete with marketing-savvy private companies that now house the bulk of the world's preserved cord blood.
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