New Braunfels Newborns Help Reach Medical Milestone
CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital-

New Braunfels celebrates more than 1,000 collections of lifesaving cord blood

New Braunfels, Texas (Nov. 18, 2009) – CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital in New Braunfels, one of twelve hospitals in Texas serving as donor site for the Texas Cord Blood Bank reaches a medical milestone, having collected more than 1,000 donations of life-saving umbilical cord blood for the statewide repository. The Texas Cord Blood Bank, a division of the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, is a non-profit program established by the Texas legislature in 2001 to collect umbilical cord blood, which can benefit patients, usually children, suffering from a number of potentially fatal diseases.

“Reaching the 1,000th cord blood collection milestone is something we’re very proud of,” said CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital – New Braunfels Vice President and Administrator, Jim D. Wesson, FACHE.  Wesson further added, “The success of this program is due to our entire team for their commitment in educating parents about the life-saving potential that their baby’s umbilical cord blood carries and, in the end, collecting the precious resource for the cord blood bank.”

Umbilical cord blood, which is normally discarded after the birth of a baby, is rich in blood-making cells that can be used as an alternative to bone marrow transplants to treat cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, disorders of the blood-making system such as sickle-cell anemia, and severe immune-system disorders.

There is no cost to parents associated with donating, and the cord blood is helping to build a statewide collection of cord blood that captures the vast ethnic diversity of Texans, as ethnicity plays a key role in finding a suitable genetic match for patients.

The Texas Cord Blood Bank’s first collections began in June 2005 in San Antonio, and new collection centers have been opened in other cities, including Brownsville, Dallas and Waco, as part of the statewide effort to build a cord blood bank that captures the diversity of all Texans.

“To date, we have banked more than 6,000 units of cord blood throughout the state,” said Mary Beth Fisk, Vice President of Development for STBTC. “I’d like to thank CHRISTUS Santa Rosa’s physicians, staff and the New Braunfels community for their contribution to this program.  Patients across Texas and the world will benefit from their efforts.”