BOSTON -- Doctors, nurses and staff at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., are celebrating the first potentially life-saving match from its cord blood donation program.

First Match For UMass Memorial's Cord Blood Donations

Dr. Mary Herlihy, an obstetrician and gynecologist at UMass Memorial, started the donation program 2 years ago. At the time, she and her colleagues could only hope their efforts would yield a match to a person in need.

“Several of them described to me that they felt chills,” said Herlihy.

This week, she and her colleagues learned that cord blood donated in Worcester was a match for a child with a life-threatening blood disorder in Europe.

“What we know is that it's a 7-year-old in Italy, who has something called myelodysplastic syndrome,” she said.

The donation program at UMass Memorial is unlike any other in the state. In the past two years, more than 1,000 units have been collected from new mothers like Jessica Klosec. The donations are enough, potentially, to help save 1,000 lives.

“It's very easy to obtain and it's of no risk to mom or baby to do it. And it truly could be a way that they specifically could help an individual,” Herlihy said.

The stem cells from umbilical cord blood can treat more than 70 different diseases. It is painlessly extracted during child delivery, then packaged and shipped to the public cord blood bank for storage until it is determined to be a match for a sick person.

“It's incredibly gratifying,” said Herlihy. “It really just brings home the reality of cord blood, something that we normally throw away.”

Donations are free for the mother, and UMass Memorial does not collect any money for collecting the donation.

Currently, UMass Memorial is the only hospital in the state that collects cord blood for public donation. For many years, parents have been able to pay a fee to bank their own cord blood for their own future use.