Old topics revisited:
I’ve had another query about the ownership of the umbilical cord, and whether blood can be taken without the mother’s express permission.
I asked this question on the list in October 2004, and a number of interesting replies were made then. However, unfortunately nobody seemed to know about the current legal status in the UK of the placenta and cord.
The query does not relate to taking blood for stem cell harvesting, or for any kind of research, but plain old cord blood pH estimation.
The concern is that a cascade of protocols is started based on a low pH result, when the mother didn’t even know a test was being carried out.
The Department of Health’s ‘Consent to organ and tissue retention at post mortem and disposal of human materials’ document does not include blood as a ‘tissue’. Neither does the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ (1995) ‘Human Tissue: Ethical and Legal Issues’ mention this.
Is anyone further forward with this?
Dr. Andrew Symon
Senior Lecturer
School of Nursing & Midwifery
University of Dundee
01382 496671
Inaugural Research Midwifery Conference, Dundee, 1st November 2007
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