Cord blood helps US girl recover from critical brain injury

A little girl in US was able to get out the vegetative state she was reduced to after a brain injury, thanks to cord blood stem cells. When Sparrow Morris fell into the family's swimming pool, she was left unconscious and without oxygen for 45 minutes. It caused severe brain damage and she was left in a vegetative state unable to sit or speak. "She had a contorted body," Fox News quoted Tonya Morris, Sparrow's mother, as saying. The Morris', who have 8 children, had decided to bank Sparrow's cord blood earler but didn't think they'd ever need to use it. Fifteen months after her injury, doctors reinfused the cord blood into Sparrow as part of a trial at Duke University. Morris said she noticed a difference in her daughter the next day. "She was excited, walking better. she spontaneously started talking to me," she said. "We didn't think we'd ever have to use (the cord blood). We just saw the value in it and decided it was money well-spent," she added. Doctors are discovering that cord blood can have a positive effect on all kinds of medical conditions - from cancer to cerebral palsy to hearing loss.