Baby's first big-ticket-item gift from mom and dad. Nothing like umbilical-cord and stem-cell storage to say "ti vogliamo bene!" I love the futuristic packaging (the pic is a bit dark but everything is a blinding silver). I feel like I just received an express shipment of astronaut ice cream direct from the space shuttle. The stem-cell bank in Lugano is this glass-enclosed C.SI.-style lab inside a hospital. An incredibly silent and efficient public hospital with gleaming waxed floors and expensive looking artwork on the walls. I had forgotten what it was like to walk into a hospital and not see lines and lines of confused ("Is this where we are supposed to be - door 348 in hallway Y of sector Q? Boh?") people standing in endless corridors full of numbered doors. I had forgotten what it was like to use a bathroom in a hospital and not have to hold my nose with one hand while at the same time holding the door with the other.Now, in order to be able to put this kit into action, I have oh-so-many hoops to jump through on the Italian bureaucracy front. Did we have any doubt? I have to have a "counseling session" with the Health Ministry whereby I sign a document (that then has to be stamped by a ridiculous number of people and agencies - really, this is going to require so much running around at nine months pregnant and at the height of Christmas season) saying I am "aware of what I'm doing." Meaning, morally. In Italy, they do allow for the collection of the umbilical cord and the stem cells, but it can't be stored here. Thus, the space-age ice packs and metallic storage system that will be collected within 24 hours of the birth by the efficient Swiss courier. We had considered using an American service, but it's even more bureaucratic when you get into this kind of "precious cargo" being shipped across the ocean. And there could be some red tape in accessing it from here should the need arise. It came down to England or Switzerland, and we decided Lugano was the most practical solution. It's all very weird if you think about it, isn't it?
We made it back over the border with no problems. Neither the Pontifical Swiss Guards nor the PapaMobile were hot on our trail!
8 comments:
I read your entry yesterday and couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what you guys were doing. I have no idea why umbilical-cord and stem-cell storage is illegal here? What's up with that?
My understanding was that you can't do it here because of the Vatican's anti-stem-cell stance. Similar to the whole thing where women have to go to Switzerland to do in vitro and other things.
That is really nuts that umbilical cord and stem cell storage is illegal here. What exactly is the reasoning behind this?
Ugh - I hate the Vatican's influence on politics here. No one I know here in Italy actually goes to church on Sundays (actually scratch that I know one person here who goes to church regularly - our portiere!) but the Vatican is still able to influence Italian politics with its fundamentalist beliefs.
Um, I hate to tell you this but they DO do this in my (otherwise pretty crappy) hospital in Bologna. All the stem-cells are stored centrally and are available to anyone who needs them (and who is a match obviously). If, God forbid, your child needs them then you can have your own back (and this has happened recently).Actually, when I say they do it in Bologna ....they do it for free for everyone except for British citizens who they are afraid will contaminate them all with the mad-cow blood ....mooooooo!
Sorry - perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick. I think you can have it collected and stored here if you want it in a "public bank" but not a private one. Just in case anyone's interested - you can find a list of the hospitals that offer this service here:
http://www.adisco.it/
So I don't think it's a Vatican-influenced decision - more an economic one! Like the sound of the hospitals in Switzerland though - if you go into labour over the border, surely they can't send you back??!
Kataroma,
We live in big cities so maybe we see fewer of the die-hard Catholics. But they are obviously out there. Remember that big referendum a few years ago on something like fecondazione assistita? That was voted down.
Cath,
I know about the public donation (though I had no idea where that was stored, if it still had to go abroad, etc.). In fact, I have to justify to the National Transplant Center here why I am choosing to go private over public. Quite frankly if my husband didn't have some pretty nasty diseases on both sides of his family, we would have never considered doing something so costly and experimental like this. But then the fear is that in a few years (when they've found it cures many more diseases and - God forbid - you need it) you'll kick yourself for not having done it. In my prenatal class when someone asked why it was illegal to store it here, the answer was "Abbiamo il Vaticano in Italia, quindi..." so I think it is somehow Vatican related. Perhaps because it's a selfish thing to store it privately? Not that the Catholic Church always supports what's for the common good, but...Now I'm curious and want to look into it. I'll also know more after I have this "phone counseling session."
We have some friends in Rome who did this and they had to jump through a ton of bureaucratic hoops. I'm not aware of any other way you can do it in Italy and then have access to your child's cord blood later, unless it's going out of the country. Hell, to be perfectly honest with you, I'd feel much better storing it in Switzerland anyhow. I mean, think about it, businesses here go bankrupt and leave people hanging all the time with absolutely no recourse. Remember Volare airlines?
Shelley,
In theory, if you donate publicly and then later need the cord blood for your child, you can have it back. Meaning, you get first dibs on it. That's PROVIDED your cord blood has not already been donated to someone else. I like the idea of donating publicly because it's just the "right thing to do." We went back and forth on it, and in the end decided to go private just to be sure. Some countries (Spain, for instance) allow you to store it privately but keep your info in a public database to give you the option to later donate to any potential match who might crop up. That, actually, would be a perfect compromise and I'd probably feel most comfortable with that. But nothing like that is available here.
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