how do you feel about cordblood banking?
Are you thinking about whether or not you should get in touch with a local cord blood bank?
The thought of cord blood banking has noticed much increased acceptance in the past decade. Nowadays people are thinking about whether they can bank their infant’s cord blood. In the past, the umbilical cord used to be thrown away after the child was finally delivered, however with growing knowledge of how helpful the blood of the umbilical cord is, the doctors have now started to store the blood of the umbilical cord in cord blood banks.
After a lot of doctors research has been performed on what can be done with the umbilical cord researchers have found that it is in fact helpful to store the umbilical cord in a cord blood bank. The blood of the umbilical cord is exceedingly beneficial in working with a variety of diseases associated with the immune system as well as other blood related disorders which people suffer from. Until the mid 1990s the umbilical blood was never stored in a cord blood bank; But after the mid 1990s the medical world have began to appreciate the significance of umbilical blood and are finally spreading awareness about the need for storing umbilical blood in a cord blood bank.
The growing importance of the Cord blood bank
The basic reason why people are now researching using a cord blood bank is due to the fact that the umbilical blood is considered to be so precious. This is due to the fact that it contains high amount of hematopoietic stem cells and can be stored in the cord blood banks safely for years. The importance of having a high quantity of hematopoietic stem cells is that this particular type of blood has the capability to generating new white blood cells and red blood cells. The concept behind the use of cord blood is similar to that of bone marrow transplants which have been in use for many years. However unlike the bone marrow which needed to be a perfect match, the utilization of the umbilical blood does not require such a perfect match.
There are much increased chances of treating an ailment with the use of umbilical blood than there are with the bone marrow transplants since the odds of a patient’s body rejecting the umbilical blood are much less in comparison to his likelihood of rejecting the bone marrow.
The continuous stem cell research shows that there are almost 70 diseases that can be cured with the use of the umbilical cord blood. It is for this reason that more and more people are finally starting to gather their baby’s umbilical cord blood in a local cord blood bank. The cord blood is not only helpful for the child whose umbilical cord blood is stored, but this blood can also be useful to the family members of the children as well. The storing of umbilical blood is vital due to the fact that research has proved that the use of the umbilical blood can be of assistance in curing cancer, damaged internal organs and even some blood disorders, which is one of the major reasons why a great deal of people are opting to use a cord blood bank service.
Those of you who wish to have your baby’s umbilical blood stored ought to choose a cord blood bank prior to the delivery of your baby because not every hospital is equipped collect and relocate the umbilical blood to the cord blood bank. Consequently you would need to pick the cord blood bank and inform your doctor just about 2 months in advance so that you can simplify the progression of documentation and preparation for the collection and storage of your baby’s umbilical cord blood to the cord blood bank.
I feel really strongly about doing it, and my babys father said its up to me becuase i do most of the research anyways.
I feel like if my child was to get some sort of cancer/lukemia later in life and i hadnt saved the blood i would kick myself forever. but then again it costs $2000, and im a fulltime student and dont really have that kind of money laying around.
so what do you guys think? has anyone stored it and needed to use it and is glad they chose to store it? or if you didnt store it why not? im just trying to make an important decision and any advise would be great. thanks.
Filed under Stem Cell by on Nov 11th, 2009. 
Comments on how do you feel about cordblood banking?
i tought about it but im not dure what to do i mean they do tro away the cord so why not do something good with it right??
I would love to have the $ to do this! I feel the same way, like how bad would I feel if something happened and I couldn’t forgive myself. But I just don’t have the money.
Once again the people with the cash get the best health care.
We chose to do this with our first and thank God we have never needed to use it. When we had our second, we debated for months, and then finally decided against it, although I’m not really sure why. In addition to the initial payment, you also have to pay a yearly storage fee. Ours is a little over $100. Congrats, by the way!
Hind sight is always 20/20. I wish that it was more readily available and that I had been more educated about it when my son was born. My husband has a disease that they are doing stem cell research on now. It sure would be nice if we had some availability to a supply source so that as more information becomes available he could potentially be part of some kind of clinical trial. Expensive, you bet. It’s just like any other kind of insurance you but, you may never need it. The only problem is once it’s all said and done you can’t change your mine. Good luck:)
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I started saving money for banking. The $2,000 initial payment is steep, but I managed to do it and am glad I did. The storage fee is only $125 a year (I went through Viacord) and that is well worth it for the peace of mind it gives me.
The child and mother are a 100% match. Next in line would be the father and siblings I think. If I ever came down with something that the cord blood could be used for, that would keep me alive to take care of my daughter and that alone makes it worthwhile for me. It’s all about her.
Its overrated in my opinion, its costly to collect, costly to store each year, and with todays technology you will probably never use it…You also risk the blood bank going out of business thus losing your investment.
JMO!
my child hood best friends mother had a baby(he himself was a early teen baby) and she keep his little sisters cord blood after she was born….yea $2000 is alot for saving blood but it turned out he had cancer of the liver,stomach,brain, and muscles, he had cemo and when they had to do a stem cell transplant they were able to use his sisters blood from when his mother saved it. if they would have never saved it who knows if he would have survived and be my soon to be babies god father. so $2000 is a small price to pay for a life that could be saved.
good luck
I wish I could afford it!! I’m donating my son’s when he is born. If he ever gets sick (which I pray he does not!) I will pray there is someone compatible w/ him that can help. I donated my bone marrow to someone I was compatible with and saved their life, and I donate blood every month in hopes it will help someone that needs it. I would hope karma would kick in if my son ever got sick!
I really really really want to do this, the price is just so steep!!! But I keep thinking that if anything were to happen i would’ve wished that I had done it and that guilt were be a horrible thing to bear. Argh–lilke the other poster said–the rich always get the better medical care!
The American Academy of Pediatrics states that the possibility that anyone in your family will ever use the blood is about 1 in 200,000. Pretty low odds. For that reason, and others, they don’t recommend it because of the cost.
What’s a much better idea is to donate it to a cord blood bank. At this point, enough people have donated to cord blood banks, that it’s likely you’ll find a match if any family member does need stem cells. One thing that’s likely, too, is that geneticists will soon figure out an easy way to obtain stem cells from other sources.
I’m totally going to donate cord blood to a bank and urge everyone to do so, especially if otherwise the blood would just be discarded.