Do You See What I See?

We recently discovered, with the help of our son's teacher, that he needs glasses. We survived the ophthalmologist appointment and will pick up the new specs in a few days. When the nurse walked me over to the wall of glasses and asked me what kind we would like, I asked for, "Whatever is the most indestructible." She showed me ones that you can literally bend in half and they won't break, thank goodness.

Any tips from moms out there about glasses-wearing for young boys (Dash is a VERY hyperactive 4 year old who has sensory integration issues and often has very violent outbursts with flailing limbs). I read somewhere online that two good rules are:

Always take glasses off with both hands.

Always hand glasses to Mommy or Daddy.

After commenting on Red's Olympic unit post, I realize that I will probably have to add various rules about not using glasses as weapons, lock picks etc.

I decided against getting a bunch of library books about getting glasses, wearing glasses, etc., because, with Dash, I think our best bet is to downplay. I'm more worried about how to keep them in one piece!

To Sigg Fans...

We have been Sigg fans for awhile. My kids carry around their bottles like security blankets and we don't leave home without them (see wagon cupholders). If they are hurt or sad they sob, "I want my water bottle." When Jack-Jack left his when out with his Grandma, we paid to have another yellow one shipped from Canada, the only one left in North America. Which is why I was so sad to see that the liners contain BPA, precisely what we were aiming to avoid. There is a voluntary exchange program until the end of October. For us returning their water bottles will be like taking away a cherished blankie or teddy bear. I'm not sure if it's better for them to ingest chemicals or to have their hearts broken!

Autism Article

For those who are science-inclined, I thought this was interesting.

h/t JesusthroughMary

Is this my child?

My 3.5 year old son has inherited my terrible seasonal allergies, confirmed by testing. He has a runny nose, sore throat, red eyes and has been sneezing for the last two weeks. We finally stated him on zyrtec for kids two days ago.

Since then he has been a little crazy. He has been disobeying, throwing temper tantrums, hitting and scratching me. To be fair, I prefer natural remedies in general. I feed the kids local raw honey once they turn one and keep them outside to expose them to allergens to help build up their immunity, etc. I'm not sure if I'm unfairly blaming the medication for a rough period with a three year old. I plan to take him off it tomorrow and see if his behavior changes, but he is miserable (as I am) because of allergies to pollens, grasses, trees and weeds. A google search revealed some moms that said the medication affected their kids' behavior.

Has anyone else experience behavior changes due to medication? How do you know? Is it just trial and error until you find the right medication?

Yet another reason to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

Mercury.

Yup, it actually has mercury in it! Check out this Washington Post Article. A special thanks to Ellie and her new alternative cooking blog for the tip.

Beyond Organic

Last weekend was an intense educational experience for our family. We spent the weekend in western Pennsylvania visiting the sustainable “beyond organic” farm of an old law school friend.
The paths of lawyers and farmers usually only cross at an upscale, yuppie farmers market. Fortunately for us, we were blessed to have known our farmer friend before he became a farmer’s market supplier.

Farmer Dave was an old law school classmate of Mr. Red. Despite a stellar first year performance, Dave decided that law school wasn’t for him. Instead, Dave and his beautiful wife Mandy took a big risk - a risk many of us crunchy folks talk about taking, but few ever actually take. Dave and Mandy packed their bags, moved in with Mandy’s parents, and started working towards owning their own sustainable farm.

In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan spends some time on Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. At one point, Salatin lets Pollan know that part of the problem with modern farming is that all the A students have left the farms for higher paying prestigious jobs. Salatin laments that most of today’s farmers are C students. In his book, Pollan clearly illustrates that good, local, sustainable farming takes brains. And like Salatin, Farmer Dave has the brains.

So what happens when an A student goes back to the land for a living?

We arrived on Saturday afternoon to Dave’s home atop a scenic hill in the country. Dave built the house himself. It is designed to be tremendously energy efficient, and includes a row of windows on the south side of the house. These windows provide heat for their well-insulated home. Inside these windows Dave grows herbs and other plants.

In the field, Dave grows a variety of crops. But Dave focuses the bulk of his energy on raising organic chickens and turkeys. The chickens we saw were beautiful little creatures. My daughter Gianna went right into the chicken pen and picked up a chicken.

Dave moves the pens daily so that the chicken poop can fertilize different parts of the field for his crops. Dave also raises some egg-laying chickens. The turkeys are kept in a larger, fenced area but, like the chicken pens, Dave regularly moves the fencing. During our tour of the turkey pen we first met “our turkey.”

Before the visit, Dave joked that instead of just buying our Thanksgiving Turkey from him, Mr. Red should butcher our turkey. Mr. Red nervously agreed. Dave then took us and our Thanksgiving turkey (and five other turkeys) over to his butchering station (shown below).

It’s a clever open-air station very similar to the Polyface arrangement described in Omnivore’s Dilemma. I won’t describe it in detail, but it’s a very respectful and simple butchering process. Mr. Red made the fatal cut to the throat and I helped with the gutting. I’ve written before about organic living and the importance of being “close” to our food. This was a whole new level of closeness.

It was a really incredible experience to take such responsibility for one’s meat-eating. Mr. Red described it as a “spiritual experience.” We even blessed the bird. And bless him we should. He is a wonderful creature, made by God and worthy of respect. It’s wonderful to see a farmer whose work incorporates those values.

The butchering and cleanup took the rest of the daylight. The next day, we briefly visited the farm of Mandy’s parents (Farmer Dave’s in-laws). The kids fed their pigs, pet their beautiful horses, and jumped in the back of a pickup truck to watch the farm dog chase around a large herd of cattle. What more could a kid ask for?

Dave and his family are doing a great thing. Their farming not only uses the land, but nourishes it. The problems of factory farming may seem overwhelming, but to a little plot of land atop a hill in Western PA, Farmer Dave is making a difference.

So the next time your local, beyond organic farmer wants an extra dollar per pound for his meat, remember Farmer Dave, and remember that your extra dollar is going to support something more than just a tasty chicken.

It's a Lousey Job

The past week has brought its fair share of difficulties for our family. For starters, on Halloween the kids and I boldly ventured into Philadelphia to meet Mr. Red for the big Phillies parade. Crowded and exhausted, we witnessed everything from grown men wearing nothing but Phillies underwear, to homeless men decked out in Phillies garb (Philly fans can afford to be generous once every 25 years). We returned home without Mr. Red and my wallet. The former had an emergency arise at work, the latter was left on the train and later returned sans money. Eight canceled credit cards and $200 later, me and the kiddos were off trick or treating.

After Dad took care of the work emergency on Saturday, we awoke Sunday morning ready for some family time. We naively thought our only obligation was to prep our basement for a major construction project, an overhaul of our 80 year-old heating system, commencing on Monday. On Sunday morning as we all sat peacefully in Mass, Gianna snuggled up close to me and I began to stroke her hair. I looked down and that’s when I saw them.

Head Lice.

Actually, it was only one disgusting louse. I quickly pulled it out of her hair and threw it on the ground.

And then I doubted.

Was it really a louse? Maybe it was a gnat or some other small bug? Maybe I had imagined the entire thing? I prayed, begging God to spare us this cross. Head lice would mean a canceled trip out of town to visit B-Mama, and a hard time finding accommodations during our heating renovation. At that moment I made a conscious decision that I would look no further. I would just sit for the rest of Mass and deal with Gianna’s hair when we arrived at home.

Once home, I quickly googled head lice. I studied pictures and then returned to Gianna’s head to see if I spotted any critters. Mr. Red held his breath and waited for me to announce our fate. Sure enough, I spotted two more live lice, and many, many, many eggs. I wanted to vomit. I asked Mr. Red to check Charlie’s head, and he quickly announced that Charlie’s hair looked identical to the “blond child with lice” photo we found online.

One shaved head and several hours of combing later, we had finished stage-one lice removal on two of our three children (the baby remains lice-free). I had yet to check my own head. With shaking hands I picked up the lice-removing comb and swept through my hair. I looked down and immediately spotted one large live louse. I held back tears as I combed again and found eggs. My head was suddenly very, very itchy. I was out of breath and panicking. Frustrated, I closed my eyes and all I could see was thousands of tiny bugs crawling all over my head. We put the children to bed and Mr. Red began an aggressive lice-removal combing regimen on my hair. Definitely true love. Helpless, I sat under bright lights, listening to REM's Everybody Hurts, and I began to weep. I thought about my looming 30th birthday. I would now spend that birthday heatless and lice-infested. I was in the trenches of motherhood.

Getting out of the trenches required a serious battle plan. I turned to the internet, the doctor and friends for advice. One week later I celebrated a lice-free 30th birthday, with heat in my home and a new set of credit cards.

The first part of my battle-plan was education. Through research I learned that head-lice are a very common childhood problem. Outbreaks generally occur in elementary schools and daycare centers, or any other place where children gather and play. Unlike fleas, lice do not jump, but climb, and so children generally spread head-lice through shared headware (hats, scarves, jackets, combs or hairbands), or shared blankets/bedding. (It is best to tell kids not to share these personal items.) Lice need a blood source to survive, so they are not likely to live for long once they leave the human head.

If you think your child has been exposed to head lice, purchase a lice-removing metal comb from a local drugstore. Then, check out the internet or your doctors office for pictures of lice and their eggs (nits). Baby lice (nymphs) are clear white and are about the size of a sesame seed. An adult louse is about 2-3 times the size of a sesame seed and is usually a brown/red color from having fed on human blood. Lice eggs are called Nits and are a grayish/brownish/yellowish color. Nits are about the size of a poppy seed, and they are glued to the hair shaft about 1cm from your child’s head. Nits are easy to see on blond hair, but much more difficult to see on darker hair.

Resist buying lice removing shampoos. Many shampoos claim to kill lice. These shampoos are loaded with toxic chemicals, complete with warning labels for very young children and pregnant or nursing women, and I have heard mixed reviews as to the success of these shampoos. Instead of the chemicals, we opted for a 21-day intense combing program, and we have had great success.

Here are some other helpful tips for keeping everyone lice-free:

A temperature of 130 degrees kills lice. To kill lice on exposed bedding/clothing, throw it in the dryer for at least 20-30 minutes. Likewise, adults can try blow-drying their hair on a very hot setting, using a hot ceramic straightening iron, and/or washing hair with very hot water. Any clothing or items that cannot be washed can be dry cleaned (those chemicals will kill anything!), or sealed in an airtight bag for 2 weeks. Put away toys such as dress up clothes or helmets that are shared and touch the head.

Lice need air to breath. Try suffocating lice with natural oil treatments. Soak hair in oil/lotion for at least 8 hours, then wash, comb with metal lice-comb, and blow dry. I used olive oil on my head and it had the added benefit of making my hair feel very nice. Many pediatricians recommend using the facial wash cetaphil. I have heard good things about this treatment but did not try it myself. I did not try any suffication treatments on Gianna as they all seemed messy. Instead, we opted for intense, regular, and thorough combing.

Whatever treatment you chose, make sure you repeat every couple of days as most suffocation/heat treatments will not kill the eggs. Eggs hatch after 7-10 days. It takes baby nymphs 7 more days to lay eggs, so it is best to repeat treatments and keep combing for at least 2 weeks.

Finally, inform other parents of potentially exposed children about your child’s case of head lice. The social stigma attached to lice is partially the result of a mistaken belief that lice live in dirty hair. Lice are actually more attracted to clean hair. Dirt, grease, and hairspray weigh hair down and make it sticky and less likely to attract crawling bugs that have to grab onto a single strand of hair. Each live louse lays up to 300 eggs, so it is really important to inform parents promptly of an outbreak.

Here’s to lice-free living! And if you have a moment, feel free to share your lice stories.

A Nutty Day

Some of our loyal readers may have picked up on the fact that we have a loose schedule of rotating blog posts among the builders. Well, today is my day, and I have spent most of it in a 10'x6' doctors office with a 3 year old and a baby, so my brain is pretty fried at this point. This is not the post I had planned to write, but I will be happy if I can put together full sentences.

Today we had Dash's "peanut challenge". He had a reaction the first time he ate peanut butter, and tested very positive to a peanut allergy. His last skin test was shockingly negative, so the next step was to have him ingest peanut protein in increasing amounts in a controlled setting while his vital signs were constantly monitored to see if he is in the 15% of kids that do outgrow their peanut allergies. The great news is that he passed! He had absolutely no reaction to the peanut flour.

Here are some reflections on the day:

1. They tell you to bring something that your child will eat to a food challenge to mix with the allergic food. I made one of Dash's favorite desserts, homemade chocolate custard (or pots de creme). As soon as the door closed I realized I might regret bringing something made with both sugar and caffeine as we would be confined to our room for the next 5 hours.

2. However, caffeine for mom is definitely a plus in this situation.

3. It is possible to hold a crying 3 year old while feeding a baby simultaneously.

4. Someone needs to invent blood pressure cuffs for toddlers that work on the first try.

5. I never thought I would even consider a request to color on the baby. Request was denied, but I did consider the ideas merits (namely, distraction for a stir crazy 3 year old) for a moment.

6. Foam stickers shaped like bugs are worth their weight in gold.

7. Ample time to reflect on why my household of 3 small men was sent an American Girl catalog.

8. I have more patience than I thought I did.

9. Upon returning home and (momentarily) having three children sleeping simultaneously, I feel I deserve to eat something made from sugar and caffeine.

Eco Friendly Recommends from the March of Dimes

While I have some concerns with The March of Dimes (primarily their goal to have every baby be a healthy baby, a very unachievable objective in our fallen world) I do think The March for Dimes does some great work. They give women valuable information to make wise health choices prior to and during their pregnancies. Having personally suffered the loss of a baby due to a very serious birth defect, I'm all for helping to improve the health of every mom and baby. For the moment, I'll put aside some of my concerns with The March of Dimes and link to their recent online newsletter article, The Eco-Friendly Mom and Baby for the 21st Century.

Many of their recommendations are great for new moms, and a real starting-off point for those of us looking to go more "green" with our parenting. I know some of our commentors are pretty hard-core in this area, but for the rest of us, it's a good place to start--especially for those expecting new little ones soon! One of their recommendations, buying an organic mattress, is of particular interest to me, and I'm wondering where I can get one of these so as to not break the bank?

Organic Living

Before I begin, I want to remind our new readers that I am a self-proclaimed granola, or “crunchy” mom. I realize that not everyone takes these issues as seriously as I do, and that’s ok. It is not my intent to be self-righteous in this post, but only to discuss some of my recent thoughts on organic living…

I recently returned from a trip to upstate/western NY, where I visited my sister and her family in their small rural town. My sister and her husband are real granolas, and they take the art of food preparation to a truly new level. At her home we were served fresh bread made from home soaked whole grains, butter that smelled like cheese from a local family farm, unpasteurized milk, and eggs with deep yellow/orange yolks—again from a local farm. We dined on whole wheat buttermilk pancakes, and my sister, with the help of a local cow, made the buttermilk! We topped off our visit with homemade vanilla ice cream made from fresh cream and sweetened with maple syrup.

When we left, I realized that my sister lives really “close” to her food. Other than herbs, she doesn’t grow the food herself (she lives on a small lot), but she knows who does, and as a result she is deeply aware of where her food comes from and how to best prepare it. Her food is natural, usually organic, and local.

We live in a small urban town and during the summer we try to buy most of our food from the local farmer’s market. The framer’s market is great because it gives the local farmers a direct to customer outlet for their foods. It allows small local family farms to not only survive, but to thrive. The farmers make more money selling directly to us, and we buy things cheaper than we could at the local supermarket. I love buying lettuce that was picked fresh in the morning, and I love talking to the farmer who picked it. I love knowing what fruits and veggies are in season in our area and waiting for the locally grown peaches, rather than buying peaches from Peru in the wintertime.

All of these things are part of what I would consider “organic living.” I use this term to mean living as a good steward of creation. Understanding where your food comes from, respecting the land it was grown on, or the cow that provided the meat, and generally treating creation and our bodies with respect.

Lately, buying organic is the newest fad in “nutritionism.” Just like the low-fat craze of the 80’s, the “organic” craze has come to mean buying anything with an organic label. The box of organic teddy grams is better than non-organic locally grown lettuce because it has the label “organic.” Organic lettuce grown in Honduras and shipped to the East Coast is better than lettuce grown on a local farm moving towards organic certification. Don’t think about the energy involved in shipping that lettuce from Honduras. Don’t think about how they actually make an organic teddy gram, the processing involved, or the trash and debris involved in the packaging. Organic teddy grams are just about as far from “organic” or close-to-nature as you can get, except maybe a bag of organic Doritos (is that possible?). But our label conscience society wants us to believe that those teddy grams are somehow good for us because they have the label organic.

I’m not trying to say that I don’t buy organic crackers or teddy grams, because I do. And I’m sure those organic teddy grams are better for your body than the regular teddy grams loaded with dyes and other harsh chemical additives and “spices.” What I’m saying is that organic living is really about moving away from these pre-packaged things, and moving toward locally grown and homemade products. It is about taking the time to prepare our own food, to understand our food, and to respect our environment and neighbors. It is about slowing down and making food preparation a part of our family life. Our culture is constantly pressuring us to go, go, go, and to buy, buy, buy, things that will make our life easier, and that usually means pre-prepared food products, and organic teddy grams. There will always be days when this cannot be avoided, but wouldn’t it be great if we could avoid it on most days. Like most things, I’m aiming for the 80/20 rule (achieve the ideal 80% of the time, don’t sweat it the other 20%).

If you’ve never considered this before, think about one practical way you can get more in touch with your food. This might mean making something from scratch that you normally buy pre-prepared (and this usually saves money.) If there is a local farmer’s market in your area, check it out. If not, maybe try to shop at a local store, you know the kind of store where they know your name after only 2 trips. If this isn’t possible, try to buy locally grown products at your grocery store and take a pass on those peaches from Honduras in January. And remember, as mothers, we are the main purchasers of food, so we really do have the power to change the way food is bought and sold in this country.

More scary, bad toxins...

This weekend, I noticed a friend using glass bottles to feed her baby. My brother's fiance has purchased an aluminum water bottle. It is really time to toss our sippy cups and beloved Nalgenes? If the New York Times says so, perhaps the BPA concerns have moved past crunchy extremism...

Vaccines, what's a parent to do?

A reader writes:

I was wondering if you would post information or discussion about vaccinations or what you have learned with your kiddies. I wrestled with my first one about them and after research, prayer, and conversation decided to continue with them. Lately, I have some friends who are very ANTI-vaccine and have pushed the issue with me. I have heard a lot lately in the media with the link to autism and then was sent this article today (article omitted). Reading this makes me NOT want to continue....but very curious to know other discussion or views on it. Thanks...and God Bless and thanks to all of you for your open blog where we can share and learn from one another!

The vaccine topic is huge. HUGE. There is a tremendous amount of information out there about vaccines, and unfortunately, much of it is sensationalized and lacking in useful or accurate information for parents. I’m going to humbly attempt to address this topic by breaking the issue down into two distinct topics: 1) What does the Church teach about when a parent can ethically vaccinate their children? and 2) Should parents vaccinate their children, from a medical/health perspective?

This post will address only issue #1 and I will save issue #2 for another post. Please keep in mind that I am not a doctor, nor do I have any formal training in moral theology. I am simply a mom who has read a lot about this topic and, like the rest of you, is trying to make decisions in the best interests of my children.

As some of you may already know, various vaccines are derived from the use of aborted fetal tissues. In the United States, the vaccines for Rubella, Hepatitis A, Chicken Pox, Polio, Rabies, and Smallpox are all derived from aborted fetal tissues. In the US, (as of 2005) there are no options for ethically acceptable vaccinations against rubella, chickenpox, and hepatitis A. (Ethically produced alternatives do exist for polio, rabies, and smallpox.) Ethically produced alternatives also exist for rubella and hep. A in other nations, but not in the US. As of 2005 there was not an ethically produced vaccination for chicken pox anywhere.

In light of these facts, the Pontifical Academy for Life, a commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a statement in 2005 entitled Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared From Cells Derived From Aborted Human Foetuses. To date this is the best and most relevant church document on the topic of vaccinations, and in my humble opinion, a must read.

In regards to doctors and parents who use the vaccines, the document states:

...doctors or parents who resort to the use of these vaccines for their children, in spite of knowing their origin (voluntary abortion), carry out a form of very remote mediate material cooperation, and thus very mild, in the performance of the original act of abortion.

Put simply, the Church teaches that by using these vaccines, you are not intentionally advancing the evil of abortion, and your unintentional contribution to the problem is very minimal. At the same time, however, we have a duty to combat the evil of using babies to make vaccines.

Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin.

So obviously, if alternative vaccines are available, we should use them. But in the US, alternative vaccines are not available for rubella (found in the MMR shot), chicken pox, and Hepatitis A. So what is a parent to do? The document addresses this issue next:

As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health.

So the document, in effect, provides a balancing test of sorts for parents questioning the use of an unethically produced vaccine. The more serious the disease, the more morally justifiable is the parents’ decision to vaccinate. The less serious the disease, the more likely a parent should choose an alternative route, such as conscientious objection.

This distinction has played out in our personal family decisions. We chose (or will choose) to vaccinate our children against rubella (although for medical reasons I will discuss in a future post, not until they are older than 3), because we feel that rubella poses a significant health risk to the general population. Luckily, my pediatrician does not routinely recommend the Hep. A vaccine for children, so I don’t have to make a decision on the Hep. A vaccine.

By contrast, we have decided against giving our children the chickenpox vaccine because we do not feel the disease is a grave enough threat to public health to warrant cooperation in the evil of abortion. Although, I will confess that I did give the vaccine to Gianna prior to my knowledge of this issue. Charlie did not receive the vaccination, Augustine will not receive the vaccination, and none of my future children will receive the vaccination, unless the drug companies develop a line of vaccines that are not derived from aborted fetal tissue—or our conscience changes through more prayer and research.

Our family has made this decision in light of this Church document, other information we have gathered about vaccinations (topic of a future post), consultation with our pediatrician, and prayer. And of course, we make no claim of infallibility. I think this is one of those issues where there isn't necessarily a "right" choice that applies to every family, particularly since individual health concerns are going to be different for each family, and perhaps different among siblings of the same family.

In summary, I think it is important that all parents take this issue seriously. We, as Catholics, have a duty to properly form our conscience. Just following the vaccine schedule of your pediatrician, no questions asked, is probably not enough to properly form your conscience on this issue. While it may not be possible to read every document on a given topic, and it may in fact be difficult to wade through the sea of information about vaccines, we must at least make an effort to educate ourselves about the moral issues involved in the debate. Then, through prayer and consultation, make the best decision for each of our children.

In the coming weeks I will do another post on the health/medical concerns involved with vaccinations...stay tuned!

FYI: Cord Blood Banking

Many of you are aware of cord blood banking as decision parents can make following the birth of a child. Umbilical cord blood, containing rich stem cells, is stored for a fee, almost as a form of future health insurance in the case a family member should develop an illness treatable by stem cells.

I found the following list of pros/cons (taken from the BabyCenter website) regarding cord blood banking to be very informative and wanted to pass it on. We have never banked any of our children's cord blood in the past and don't plan to in the future. I find the fourth reason below most provocative in this decision...

• Cord blood research is showing promising results.
Although cord blood is not yet widely used to treat patients, cord blood researchers believe that it in the future it has the potential to treat some cancers, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, heart failure, stroke, and neurological diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

• It's expensive.
Private cord blood banks usually charge an enrollment and collection fee of approximately $600 to $1,900, plus annual storage fees ranging from around $80 to $100.

• Chances are your baby cannot be treated with his own cord blood.
If your baby develops an illness with a genetic basis — and most childhood diseases are genetic — his cord blood contains the genetic instructions for that disease, so it's not a suitable treatment. Most banked cord blood is currently used to treat siblings.

• You probably have a better chance of finding a stem cell match in the public cord blood system than in your own family.
The chance of an exact tissue match between two siblings is only about 25 percent, according to Dennis Confer, chief medical officer for the National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit organization that maintains the largest public listing of umbilical cord blood units available for transplantation in the United States. In contrast, the chance of finding a cord blood match in the nation's public banks is 75 percent, he says.

• Doctors aren't ready to universally recommend banking your baby's cord blood.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have both expressed reservations about private cord blood banking for the general public because they believe the chances a family will ever need the blood are slim and because they support a public cord blood donation system (similar to blood banks). Many doctors, however, say that families with a history of diseases such as leukemia, lymphomas, and immune deficiency, among others, should consider private cord banking because their odds of needing a stem cell transplant are higher than those of the general population.

• If your child belongs to a minority group, private storage may be of more value to you.
According to July 2003 figures, a Caucasian patient has an 88 percent chance of finding a matching donor through the National Marrow Donor Program registry, while an African American's chances were significantly lower at 58 percent.

For more information on cord blood banking, check out this site or this one. I was especially interested in learning out to publicly donate my baby's cord blood, an option many new parents don't realize is available (I never did!)--for info on this, check here! God bless!