Placenta Donation Becoming Popular In Bay County
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Updated: 11:15 AM Feb 16, 2012
Placenta Donation Becoming Popular In Bay County
There are many decisions that come along with having a baby. Everything from choosing a name to what kind of crib to get. A local hospital is hoping moms will make one more decision that could mean a better life for others. It involves donating their baby's placenta.
Posted: 10:04 PM Nov 9, 2011
Reporter: Neysa Wilkins
Email Address: neysa.wilkins@wjhg.com
Baby's Placenta Can Be Donated For Research
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Obstetricians all over the world are telling expectant mothers about the possible healing properties inside their baby's placenta.
Bay Medical is going one step further.
The hospital has a program in place for women who are having a repeat c-section who are not in labor to donate their placenta.
The placenta goes to a company that uses it for research to grow human tissue for skin grafts.
Ob/GYN Dr. Deborah Edgeworth says If the studies are successful it would open up a whole new avenue of available tissue for burn victims and people who are disfigured.
Burn patients go through a long healing process that isn't always successful.
Scientists are now finding ways to use placenta stem cells to help speed up that healing simply by being sprinkled onto a wound.
There are more than four million babies born every year in the United States.
Most of the time, after birth, the placenta is thrown away.
That's because most parents aren't aware that close to 300 million cells can be taken from it.
About 50 doses of medication for burns and serious wounds can be created with one placenta.
Dr. Edgeworth says it all comes down to education.
"Most people want to be involved because it's a good service and yet it doesn't have any cost or expense or extra work or anything on the part of the patient.
It's just collected by the physician at the time of delivery and we put it in a container and ship it to the company and they take care of it from there."
The program is only for women who are having a repeat c-section.
That's because during natural child birth there's a chance more contaminants come in contact with the placenta, and researchers want as pure a specimen as possible.

Latest Comments

Posted by: Ann on Nov 10, 2011 at 08:34 PM

Here is what I have a problem with...I would donate in a heart beat...But for What I donate, how much is the cost to the patients receiving what I donated? Thousands of dollars for something I gave for free...hmmmmm..If I knew that there was no cost to the patient and the procedure was relatively cheap, I would not have a problem, but I will be darned if someone is going to use what I give them to make a profit.
Posted by: Betty Location: Florida on Nov 10, 2011 at 08:14 PM

Looks like the doctor would take the placenta and not throw it away, cause if it's something that could save a life, I wouldn't think anyone would object to that. It's not something that you your self could use.
Posted by: AL Location: FL on Nov 10, 2011 at 12:49 PM

Need to do another story on this. 1st you did a story called "blood money", now this is an opening to a story called "placenta money". Its good to hear that the medical community is learning to do good things with what used to be just discarded as medical waste though.
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