Darcey Bussell CBE
Darcey Bussell CBE is a retired British ballerina. Trained at the Arts Educational School and the Royal Ballet School, she started her professional ballet career at Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, but after only one year she moved to the Royal Ballet, where she became a principal dancer at just 20 years old in 1989. Bussell is widely acclaimed as one of the great British ballerinas. She remained with the Royal Ballet for her whole career. Since retiring from ballet in 2007, Bussell has continued to be very committed to the world of dance. In 2012 she became the President of the Royal Academy of Dance. She is the Patron of the Sydney Dance Company and President of the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s fund raising appeal. She is a patron of the International Dance Teachers Association, Ceccetti UK, Ceccetti Australia, Dance Teachers’ Benevolent Fund UK and the New English Ballet Theatre. She is an ambassador for the giving programme of the New Zealand School of Dance and is on the board of the Margot Fonteyn Foundation. She is a patron of the medical charities Sight for All, Borne and the Henry Spink Foundation. Darcey is married to Angus Forbes and has two daughters, Phoebe Olivia, born in June 2001, and Zoe Sophia who was born in February 2004. Darcey stored Zoe’s umbilical cord blood stem cells with Smart Cells.
On Tuesday 25th May 2004 Darcey was featured in an article in the Daily Mail Newspaper – it’s amazing how far this process has developed since then.
Article:
Last week, Britain’s first stem cell bank was opened, allowing parents to store their baby’s cord blood in the hope that it could cure serious health problems later in life. Ballerina Darcey Bussell decided to go ahead with the pioneering procedure after the birth of her second baby, Zoe. Darcey, 34, who lives with her husband Angus, a banker, talks to Marianne Power.
Just nine weeks after the birth of her daughter Zoe, Darcey Bussell is back in her house – the Royal Opera House – back to work and marveling at the ease of her second birth. With her svelte post-natal figure dressed in a casual black tracksuit, it is hard to believe she has seen her 30th birthday, let alone that she is a mother-of-two. But as she talks about her daughters, it is clear where her priorities lie.
Darcey realised the precious nature of her children’s health when a serious case of pre-eclampsia put her first baby’s life – and her own – in danger. When she fell pregnant with her second daughter, Zoe, she took no chances and signed up to an unusual form of health insurance.
Although the pioneering procedure – which involves freezing blood from her newborn baby’s umbilical cord – is controversial, Darcey believes that one day it could be used to treat anything from blood conditions to cancer, and wants mothers everywhere to know about it.
Darcey did not know about stem cell collection when she was pregnant with her first child, Phoebe, and the emergency birth would have made it a low priority compared with keeping both mother and baby alive.
However when she was pregnant with Zoe, she contacted CryoCare stem cell bank (now called Smart Cells International) and decided to investigate.
They explained that stem cells from the umbilical cord are the body’s master cells – capable of turning into red blood cells which carry oxygen around the body, white blood cells which fight infection, and platelets which are necessary for clotting.
Stem cells are already being used to treat blood disorders and immune diseases in children, but some believe that in the future they will also treat heart problems, liver disease and even breast and ovarian cancer.
“Doctors take stem cells from bone marrow to treat illnesses such leukaemia but taking it from the cord is an easier and less painful way to do it,” says Darcey.
Today hospitals routinely extract stem cells if there is a family history of certain genetic diseases, or if there is a sibling with leukaemia. Darcey’s family has a history of cancer.
“My grandmother died of it and my mother is regularly checked so i was conscious of that as a risk. I also heard that in one case an older man was saved by stem cells. So even if my children didn’t need them, they could help others.”
You can check out the full article here: Daily Mail News Article
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