Baby Rescue: Cord blood saves infants with rare disease
By Nathan Seppa
Few events shatter new parents’ joy faster than learning that their baby has an incurable illness. One such condition is infantile Krabbe’s disease, an inherited disorder of the nervous system. Because of an enzyme deficiency, the short lives of such infants are marked by irritability, feeding problems, seizures, blindness, and deafness. These babies usually die before age 2.
Doctors now report rescuing infants from Krabbe’s disease with an infusion of umbilical cord blood from an unrelated donor.