I just heard some remarkable news that could resonate throughout this great land and leave countless children with empty piggy banks. What I am talking about are pillows without shiny money, toothless grins that quickly fall from a child’s face, bedrooms without the sound of parents tippy-toeing in to ransom a lost tooth. In short I am talking about Americana, our beloved way of life. Well………. maybe I am going a bit overboard with this, but the reason is a change in the way we parents deal with our kid’s lost baby teeth.
I would image if I were reading this that I would suspect the blog is going to detour into some discussion about sanitation, infection, cross contamination etc. No, it is all about stem cells. Yeah, no kidding. A company in California ( why doesn’t that surprise me? ) has developed a process that they claim will preserve your child’s baby teeth with the idea of possible harvesting stem cells from them. The idea behind this promotion is that your child may develop a condition later in life, such as parkinson’s disease, that could be treated with their own stem cells. I think the idea is fascinating. I don’t know where modern medicine stands in succesfully using stem cells for treatment, but I think we will see more use of stem cells in the future. After reading about this process I was reminded about the people that get frozen with the hope that after doctors discover a cure for the disease that killed them they can be thawed out. Whoa! that is some heavy concept. Anyone coming back alive today would take a look at the gas prices and go hop back into the cooler.
Back to the topic. If a parent would like to save their child’s tooth for a hedge against future disease they can ask me for the information and I will put them in touch with this company. The cost is about $500.00. That will probably keep most parents away, but it is an option.. If we knew for sure that it would work it would be quite a bargain. Time will tell. I am glad they are attempting to use stems cells from some other source than fetal tissue.