UPDATE: After searching for more than two months for a bone marrow donor, Montreal leukemia patient Mai Duong has found a compatible cord blood donor. Its not the perfect solution, but doctors say its the next best thing.

It is not being released where the donor came from.

A woman has given birth to her child and has donated her babys umbilical cord to save another life, said Duong in a statement.

Thank you dear mommy, we cannot fathom the importance of your gesture. I am very moved and I profoundly thank you for what youve done.

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VANCOUVER Mai Duong, 34, only has six weeksleft to get a life-saving stem cell or bone marrow transplant and shes pleading with the Lower Mainlands Asian population tosave her.

The mother of one was born and raised in Montreal. Shes had good health for most of her life, until she was diagnosed with leukemia in January 2013, while pregnant with her second child. Doctors told her she had to terminate the pregnancy she was at 15 weeks and start chemotherapy immediately.

Duongwent into remission, but ten months later the cancer was back. And this time it was more aggressive and chemotherapy wouldnt work, she was told. Instead, she needed stem cells or a bone marrow transplant.

Even though Im on the international registry list for donors, I did not have a match for the bone marrow. I was devastated when they told me that, she toldGlobal News.

It turns out the problem of finding a match, and a perfect one at that, is more common among those of Asian descent. In 2012, 2-year-old Jeremy Kong of San Francisco was diagnosed with leukemia and couldnt find a match until he went public. After doing so, he found a nine out of tenbone marrow donor match and underwent a transplant, but died a year later. Experts say Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and other South Asian populations are behind Caucasians when it comes to donating blood and organs.

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UPDATE: Montreal woman who pled with B.C. residents to save her life finds umbilical cord donor

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