exposing the dark side of adoption
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How much is a woman's eggs worth these days?

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All life begins at a cellular level.  Thanks to modern medicine, infant mortality rates have decreased.  According to a 2002 published CDC report:

During the 20th century, U.S. infant mortality rates (IMRs) declined by 90%; however, many of the largest U.S. cities continue to have high IMRs compared with national rates. Studies of U.S. infant mortality by region document persisting geographic disparities and differences across racial/ethnic groups. This report highlights the wide disparities in the most recent overall race- and ethnicity-specific IMRs for the largest U.S. cities and describes key differences among those cities. The findings demonstrate the need to decrease infant mortality among blacks in U.S. cities. 

Thanks to medical research, maternal morbidity (illness) rates have decreased. In another published CDC report, Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies:

At the beginning of the 20th century, for every 1000 live births, six to nine women in the United States died of pregnancy-related complications, and approximately 100 infants died before age 1 year (1,2). From 1915 through 1997, the infant mortality rate declined greater than 90% to 7.2 per 1000 live births, and from 1900 through 1997, the maternal mortality rate declined almost 99% to less than 0.1 reported death per 1000 live births (7.7 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1997) (3) (Figure 1 and Figure 2).

Environmental interventions, improvements in nutrition, advances in clinical medicine, improvements in access to health care, improvements in surveillance and monitoring of disease, increases in education levels, and improvements in standards of living contributed to this remarkable decline.

[Yet...]

Approximately half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, including approximately three quarters among women aged less than 20 years. Unintended pregnancy is associated with increased morbidity and mortality for the mother and infant. Lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking, drinking alcohol, unsafe sex practices, and poor nutrition) and inadequate intake of foods containing folic acid pose serious health hazards to the mother and fetus and are more common among women with unintended pregnancies. In addition, one fifth of all pregnant women and approximately half of women with unintended pregnancies do not start prenatal care during the first trimester. Effective strategies to reduce unintended pregnancy, to eliminate exposure to unhealthy lifestyle factors, and to ensure that all women begin prenatal care early are important challenges for the next century.  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm

Marternal mortality statistics are indicative of the overall state of maternal health for a particular population.  But they are only the tip of the iceberg. For every woman who dies, some twenty others face serious or long-lasting consequences. Women who survive severe, life-threatening complications often require lengthy recovery times and may face long-term physical, psychological, social and economic consequences. The chronic ill-health of a mother puts surviving children, who depend on their mothers for food, care and emotional support, at great risk. http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/morbidity.htm

Worldwide, an estimated 515,000 women die each year due to pregnancy-related complications, most of them in the developing world. Millions of other women sustain serious health problems due to pregnancy and childbirth. http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Programs/maternaldeat_rp.htm

Mothers and dying literally and figuratively to keep their pregnancies alive and well, but private practicioners are getting greedy.  When did single cell-placement in a woman's uterus become prime real estate for doctors, lawyers and politicians?  "Location, location, location".  God bless the mother's child placed in the wrong place by the wrong people.  There should be warning labels on adopted babies:  Buyer Beware -- Do you know where this baby has been?

I remember immediately after my first of four was born in 1994, I was asked if I wanted to donate my cord-blood to a private blood bank.  Had I been alert and oriented to the nature of the conversation, I could have made an educated decision.  As an adult-adoptee, and a parent, it concerns me that I do not know what medical mysteries lurk in my gene-pool.  I already had a tumor removed from my breast before my thirty-second birthday.  What other Unknown Disease Conditions dare to plague this patient?  Other than asthma and mild kidney problems, what fate will my children have with their incomplete medical histories?  For those who think Adoption is a single life-event, may you never have to decide the medical course of action for the next adoptee needing life-support.

Within just a few years, the possibility that the human body contains cells that can repair and regenerate damaged and diseased tissue has gone from an unlikely proposition to a virtual certainty. Adult stem cells have been isolated from numerous adult tissues, umbilical cord, and other non-embryonic sources, and have demonstrated a surprising ability for transformation into other tissue and cell types and for repair of damaged tissues. http://www.stemcellresearch.org/old/Prentice-AdultStemCells.pdf

In many ways, today's mothers are better prepared in terms of pre-and post natal care.  It's a nurse's job to educate the public, and advocate options that help, not hurt a person.

In terms of do-overs and child-birth, it's too late for my mother's daughter.  Somehow, I survived and became a stronger person because of all my absences, and I imagine my natural mother would be very impressed to see the family she helped create.  Perhaps the greatest lesson adoption has taught me is a mother's love, care and concern should never come with a price-tag.  From what I was told, she worked in a hospital lab.  Doing what?  I don't know, but her work required world-travel, so I'm guessing she had a few good brain cells working in her and my favor.

Mothers need to be smart, because there are vultures out there who prey on the weak and afraid.

Don't be fooled by those seeking profit from vitally important pieces of missing information. 

There are many options for making the most of the blood contained in the umbilical cord. Public cord blood facilities exist in several states and countries which serve the public most often as an alternative to bone marrow transplants. However, public cord blood banking is very costly per unit because it is necessary to perform expensive HLA typing (for matching donor to recipient to avoid rejection of the cells by the recipient's immune system) prior to storage in order to maintain a database of available potential matches. Because the cost is so high, many public banks have been forced to refuse donations.

Donating cord blood to research is another option. The therapies of tomorrow are based on research done in labs and clinics today. Research using the stem cells contained in umbilical cord blood has led to great scientific discoveries which benefit mankind and promise to bring more benefit to mankind in the future.  http://utahcordbank.com/?q=node/7

For pricing and feature information, read the charts compiled on http://parentsguidecordblood.org/content/usa/banklists/summary.shtml#us

For more information on cord-blood donation in the United States, read

There are 40 public cord-banks in the world.  Individual websites include: 

by Kerry on Thursday, 26 July 2007