Michigan Mom Makes Humanitarian Donation of the Gift of Life: Mother's Day 2014

Ruth Appah did her Mother’s Day gifting early this year.

She didn’t go to a gift shop or send a flower arrangement. She didn’t buy a card, and she doesn’t even know who will receive her gift.

Appah gave away her daughter’s umbilical cord blood after giving birth to her second child, Annabelle, on Feb. 27.

It was easy for Appah to make the decision to donate the cord blood, which like bone marrow is rich in stem cells that can be used in transplants for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases.

A registered nurse who lives in Macomb Township and works at St. John’s Hospital in Madison Heights, Appah said she was inspired to make the humanitarian donation after reading  the story of the mother of a 2-year-old with leukemia whose life had been saved by a similar donation.

“I don’t know who might be saved by this,” Appah told Patch, “but someone will get another chance because of it.”

Appah donated the cord blood through Michigan Blood’s Be the Match program. The blood bank’s Cord Blood Bank is one of only 20 such cord blood repositories in the country and was the first in Michigan, established in 1999. Cord blood donated there is listed on international databases to help patients anywhere in the world.

The donation process is easy and painless if mothers-to-be decide before giving birth to donate the cord blood, Appah said.

Some new moms are concerned critical bonding time immediately after giving birth, but making the decision ahead of time takes that worry out of the process, Appah said.

“It’s as simple as saying, ‘Yes, I want to do it,’ ” she said. “You can hold your baby right away and have that contact.”

Donating cord blood is also free – something some new mothers-to-be may not know, she said.

One new mom she talked to believed she would have to pay to donate the cord blood, but a fee is incurred only when the blood is stored for their possible future use. Also, she said, there’s no guarantee the stem cells will be a match for their offspring or usable, especially if they’re needed to treat a condition that may be genetic.

Appah hopes telling her story will motivate other new parents to consider humanitarian donations.

“You know you are going to help someone,” she said. “There are so many people who can receive it. It’s like the blood you donate. Someone can be saved from it. It’s a very rewarding thing to do.”

Even if there is no match for the cord blood, it can be vitally important in research, she said.

Appah, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ghana who has lived in Michigan for eight years, said it’s rewarding to know that some of her and her daughter’s cells will help people like her father, who died in 2007 in a country with sporadic access to high-quality health-care.

Appah said she wishes she and her husband, Emmanuel, a pharmacist, had known about cord blood donations when their son Andrew, now 3, was born.