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Insuring a child's health by preserving their stem cells obtained from the umbilical cord at birth is gaining popularity across the kingdom.

Doctors say that numbers have gone up significantly this year with just one leading hospital reporting at least 185 parents opting for this procedure in the last nine months, up from 45 last year.

Stem cells are the human body's 'master cells' that have the ability to regenerate and turn into the cells that form all other tissues, organs, and systems in the body.

Medical research has proved it to be an invaluable medical resource that has been part of medical treatments for four decades and can be used for the baby and immediate family members.

While the number of diseases and injuries that are being treated using stem cells is growing rapidly, they have been successfully used for treatments in a variety of blood and bone marrow diseases such as leukaemia, thalessimia, lymphomas and other blood cancers, bone marrow failure disorders and sickle cell disease.

Adliya-based Britons Rachel and Andrew Bainbridge, both in their forties, opted for the procedure when their bouncy and healthy daughter, Rebecca, was born in Bahrain 14 months ago. They also have a daughter, Tatiana, six.

Having experienced first hand the pain of losing two babies, who were born prematurely at 20 and 24 weeks, the couple chose to invest their money in the long-term benefits of medical research for their children.

Andrew, chief executive officer at BMI Bank, said that the procedure cost them around BD1,150. He said: "It's not so much as what you can do with it now as much as what you can do with it in 20 years time. It could help not just our children but also us and possibly even others, as stem cells are so generic. It may be of help or it may not, you don't know what is going to happen in the future.

"It's like an insurance policy ... you may well never need it but you don't want to be at a point when you need it and then you don't even have it. It is not a huge cost when you think you are buying 20-years of protection for your child. For any parent, if your child gets sick you do whatever you can to save your child's life.

"We have lost two children and when that happens, you need to be able to say that 'I have done everything possible to save my child'."