FAQ-s (cord stem cells)
Yes, the collection of umbilical cord blood and tissue is processed in Estonia at East Tallinn Central Hospital. The stem cells will be stored in Nottingham (UK), in the Future Health Biobank. This is a high quality stem cell bank – safe and reliable, which responds to the highest security requirements. East Tallinn Central Hospital is the only hospital in Estonia, who has the license to process sample collection.
The collection of the umbilical cord blood and cord tissue is absolutely painless, non-invasive and risk-free procedure for both – mother and child, which takes less than 10 minutes. The collection does not interfere with the normal delivery process. Immediately after the birth of your baby, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut as normal. The blood or cord tissue sample can then be collected from the cord by certified healthcare professional.
Yes, you can. A small fraction of the total blood volume in the umbilical cord is required to collect a sample. This means that the majority of maternal blood will go to the baby during delayed cord clamping, alongside its essential oxygen and nutrients.
Yes, it is possible.
Unique stem cells can only be taken from the baby’s umbilical cord blood and cord tissue at the time of birth, so it is a once in a lifetime opportunity! The decision by parents should be done earlier, before or during the pregnancy. We suggest to have the final decision latest 2 months before the expected date of delivery.
All of Future Health Biobank storage tanks are alarmed and monitored 24/7, 365 days a year. In the event of an emergency they can run without electricity for up to 5 days, allowing time to relocate samples.
There are over a million cord blood samples in private storage across the world, and every one of those parents made that decision for a different reason. From varied reasons the most obvious was that the parents chose to invest in their baby’s future health, as the diseases and injuries might occur unexpectedly. Few other reasons can be pointed out, why the parents have made the decision more often:
- Family illness: there has been some serious illness in the family: cancer, diabetes, immune or metabolic disorders or other.
Needed for siblings or parents: the baby’s own cells match 100% to her/him, but they may help well also the siblings or parents. - Adoption or donor ovum/sperm: in this case usually the biological parents are not known and child’s own cells can secure his/her health.
- Quick availability: should the need for treatment ever arise, a privately stored stem cell sample can be accessed immediately and without any additional costs. Finding suitable donor cells can take quite a time and a matching sample might never be
FAQ-s (Dental pulp stem cells)
The term ‘dental pulp stem cells’ refers to specialist stem cells found in the soft tissue at the centre of a tooth. Milk teeth that naturally fall out contain a rich source of cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). This type of stem cell can repair and repair many types of tissue in the body, including muscle, nerve, bone and cartilage, to treat diseases.
Dental pulp banking starts with collecting a single fallen milk tooth from your child, then having the stem cells within processed and stored for use in potential future treatments. All samples are stored privately, meaning the stem cells will only be accessible to your child and/or a family member.
Mesenchymal stem cells found in dental pulp are currently present in over 1,000 studies worldwide. These trials have identified the benefits of dental stem cells for treating a range of illnesses such as muscular dystrophy, neurogenerative diseases and arthritis.
The stem cells found in cord blood are known as hematopoietic stem cells and can also be found in bone marrow. They have the ability to repair and renew blood cells in the human body and treat blood-related and autoimmune illnesses. MSCs found in dental pulp repair and renew bone, cartilage, muscle and other types of tissue cells, with the potential to treat the likes of spinal injury, heart disease and arthritis.
The process couldn’t be simpler. We send your dental pulp collection kit to your home once your child has a wobbly tooth. Once the tooth falls out, place it in the specialist tooth collection kit before notifying our medical courier. The courier will then collect the sample from your home and send it to our laboratory. We take care of the sample processing, quality testing and contamination testing before finally storing each sample for decades to come.
Whilst any tooth has the potential to be used, ideally we would recommend sending any of the anterior deciduous teeth. These are the 12 teeth in the front, 6 on top and 6 on bottom.
Future Health biobank has successfully isolated stem cells from both adult teeth and milk teeth. Teeth removed for orthodontic purposes as well as wisdom teeth extractions can be sent for processing, providing they are 100% healthy.