Angie writes:
"What's the deal with banking cord blood?? It seems like crazy money for something there's only a minute chance of ever needing. But then the brochures guilt you into it. Did you bank your kids' blood? What did your readers do?"
I did not bank either of my sons' cord blood. It seemed like too great an expense to me for something that had such a small chance of being needed. But that was just for us. If you have risk factors that make cord blood banking make sense for you, it might be worth looking into. With absolutely no family history of childhood diseases or any of the other things cord blood is used for, it just didn't make sense for us.
One thing that may have made more sense but wasn't possible for us* was cord blood donation. with donation, your child's cord blood is drawn and then sent to a bank where anyone who is a match and needs cord blood can receive it. It's a way of using the cord blood for good even if you personally don't need it. If our situation had been different I'd have strongly considered it.
Did anyone do cord blood banking? If so, why? If not, why not? What about cord blood donation?
* Things were too rushed in the hospital with the birth of my first son so cord blood was not on anyone's mind,
and I had my second son in my bathroom as a planned homebirth so there was no way to collect the cord blood.
@melissa, it is the marketing that is scam-like. It does NOT take into account individual/family medical history, at least not the version I've seen. It treats everyone as if they are in your shoes - with a known, serious, and relevant history. In your case, ABSOLUTELY, it would be kind of nuts to NOT bank. But for the average person, donating so that people like those in your family get another better chance (rather than banking for self/child) is really the best option. You're buying insurance, essentially - and in your case, the odds are significant. In my case, not so much.
And DO ask if the delayed clamping matters - I was told that it did make a difference, at least for the donations (like blood donation, they want a minimum quantity). But they also may have solved that problem between then and now! It would be great if you could do BOTH.
Posted by: hedra | January 26, 2009 at 11:17 PM
I desperately wanted to donate my childrens cord blood as I work in Haematology and know how wonderful cord blood is but my first child was born on a Friday and the program was M-T and my second was born at 6am (on a Thurs) but the cord blood nurses are only available 9am-5pm! Sadly it wasn't meant to be.
Posted by: Sarah | January 27, 2009 at 01:16 AM
The Catholic hospital I delivered in won't participate in the donataion scheme (in Australia in 2006). I think this sounds silly because as I understand it (and I haven't really looked into it!) other ways of getting stem cells are, ahhh, problematic for the Catholic church, but I can't see how cord blood would be (caveat: I'm not Catholic, or even Christian).
Posted by: keda | January 27, 2009 at 05:51 AM
We did bank blood for our second kid. But we just had a friend diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer--cancer of the blood plasma (myeloma?)--and she is going to do some sort of treatment using those cells from her daughter's cord blood. I don't know if it is experimental or not and have no idea if it will save her life or not but I'm sure she was quite thankful she did it.
Posted by: JEM | January 27, 2009 at 07:14 AM
Not to hijack, but:
Keri,
Another Chicago mama here! Delivered DS1 at the old Prentice and DS2 at the new Prentice.
If anyone wants to meet up someday (maybe when it finally friggin' thaws out), let's chat.
Posted by: Ladre | January 27, 2009 at 08:17 AM
I thought it was a bit of a scam but mostly didn't do the banking because, like others, ours will be an only child so it wasn't useful.
I very much wanted to donate and got through the entire application with Cryobank Intl or whoever only to find out that they wouldn't accept me because we used donor sperm, even though we certainly had as much info about the family health background as we would have about my husband and even though they can test the blood themselves. PISSED me off.
Posted by: bri | January 27, 2009 at 09:11 AM
I tried to donate my second child's cord blood, but found out that I would still have to pay my OB/GYN a $300 fee (NY city hospital) for the cord blood collection. And the cord blood bank wouldn't reimburse us. It really annoyed me but I wasn't going to pay $300 to donate it, so we didn't. If you want to pursue donation make sure you check with your MD to see if they have a separate fee.
Posted by: Jennifer | January 27, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Hey Ladre and all other Chicago area parents,
How about folks e-mail me at sully6 at gmail dot com to get the conversation going?
I'd love to be part of a group of Chicago Moxites.
Posted by: Keri | January 27, 2009 at 11:50 AM
We couldn't afford the banking, and ultimately came to the conclusion that many other did, that it wasn't worth it because it couldn't really be used on him anyway. I opted to donate it, but it turned out there wasn't even enough for a donation. It made me wonder if I had been paying for banking if they would have told me that there wasn't enough or if they would have kept my money and stored the scant useless amount they collected.
Posted by: Kristine | January 27, 2009 at 11:56 AM
#1--Did nothing with it. Was pre-donation days and OB said banking was too new to know what we could really do with it.
#2--Banked it. Pay a yearly fee of $95. Nice to know it's there just in case. No risk factors... just peace of mind.
#3--Donated it. Decided that chances were so slim of ever needing. Will regret it if he does end up needing it.
Posted by: AmyinTexas | January 27, 2009 at 01:01 PM
I wanted very much to donate my kids' cord blood but found out in researching the process that I would not be able to because I had cancer (melanoma) a few years earlier. There was a whole list of health conditions that precluded you from donating, at least through the agency closest to me, so I just stopped there and did not pursue it.
Posted by: Jenn (dish) | January 27, 2009 at 02:53 PM
We decided on delayed clamping both times - interestingly enough, we were even given information on banking cord blood when we were in Japan. So it's not just an American thing, as so many of these things seem to be. The second was at home, and we really just didn't even consider it.
Posted by: Meika | January 27, 2009 at 02:57 PM
Donated it last time.
This time will delay clamping (anemia from hyperemesis, figure more iron for baby is a good thing).
Re donating for research vs a bank: I understand if it's complicated/pricy/not possible, but for those hesitating because it doesn't seem as useful as donating to a real person--as the daughter of a biostat professor--donating for research is *still* adding something positive to the world!!!
Posted by: Heather | January 27, 2009 at 03:01 PM
The real problem is that there are no regulations for how it is stored. Which means that in the off chance that you ever actually do need it, it is highly unlikely that any hematologist/oncologist will accept it as a specimen. They rather have cord blood that has been donated.
So I'm bummed I wasted the ViaCord money.
Posted by: jmd | January 27, 2009 at 08:28 PM
Thanks memegrl..had no clue as I live in Florida and no one even seems interested in even bringing it up with this pregnancy. That really gets my goat about being caucasian....I would be donating cord blood with zero problems from two healthy white parents, and there are more caucasians in this country than minorities, you would think the need would be greater. Whatever; they can keep it. My last OB made me feel so bad about not banking, that it turned me OFF, because he did say the dad cant be helped with it. if anyone would be using it, it would be Dad, he's a smoker and overweight ;OP but they also made me TRY and feel bad saying that if my daughter got sick, I'd have that on my mind if I didnt help her. WTF? Yet another insensitive OB to the rescue....sigh.
Posted by: Jax | January 28, 2009 at 04:16 PM
Some research that I read at the time stated something along the lines of (some really high percentage) 85-95 percent of banked cord blood that was used for treatment was for families with genetic blood disorders. If you know going in that you fall into that category then it's a valuable safeguard, if not its wasted money. Someday science may catch up and make it more useful but surely by then it will be so commonplace that it won't cost an arm and a leg.
The guilt trip aspect of the company marketing was ridiculous. The hormones make you so vulnerable to those cute baby faces on the brochure and you seem to get a zillion of them at every turn.
Posted by: Amy | January 28, 2009 at 06:20 PM
I know there have been a million answers to this and I am late to this table but I just wanted to say that I wish I had saved the cord blood for my son.
I know CBR and ViaCord turned it into a big business for themselves but that doesn't mean its not worth doing. We donated which I at least felt strongly about. But I wish I had that blood in my back pocket not because I fear him getting a dread disease but because they are coming up with new tech and new uses for it everyday. So yes, right now, there isn't a certainty that there will be uses for cord blood, but that doesn't mean there won't be next year or the next. So if you've got the means, go for it. ESPECIALLY if you have any blood disorders in your family.
Posted by: Cheryl | January 29, 2009 at 03:26 AM
We are grad students living in a midwestern university town. No one we know could afford cord banking, plus I don't even think it is an option here (not very "Midwestern," after all). Instead, at about 7 months pregnant I signed up to donate the cord blood to a research program at the local university that our OB was affiliated with. I had a hellish labor and an emergency C-section, and I never even bothered to ask/find out what happened with the cord and blood. I hope it was collected and donated to the U, but honestly, I have no idea if that worked out after all.
Donating clearly seems like the best option all around, but I understand why there might be financial barriers to making it widely available.
Posted by: lurker | February 01, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Well, in my case, the worst did happen. I had an egregiously inept midwife consequently, a botched home birth. My son nearly died. He now has Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Quadriplegia. Wish I hadn't been so cynical about the "Fear-Mongering/For Profit Scheme/Too Expensive" cord blood banking. My little one could have really used it.
Posted by: Ana | February 02, 2009 at 09:28 PM
I tried to leave a comment last week about this, but it's missing. Are comments closed on this thread?
I only wanted to say that genetic predispositions to certain conditions are not the only good reason to bank cord blood. Cerebral Palsy and other brain/spinal cord injuries are now being treated with stem cells with good success. We had a very negligent midwife (who has a Master's degree in Certified Nurse Midwifery from SUNY Stony Brook) who did not diagnose preeclampsia although I had several of the symptoms. Consequently, I had an abnormal labor, my placenta abrupted at the birth, my son was not breathing and the midwife's oxygen tank was not in working order. She failed to test the tank before the birth. She didn't have adequate CPR skills. There was a significant delay in gettin oxygen to my son. He now has Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Quadriplegia as a result of her negligence. He would have benefitted from stem cell therapy from his own cord blood. But I cynically thought it was a "scam" and the negative outcome would never happen to me.
Posted by: Ana | February 05, 2009 at 04:03 PM
A blog shows a kind of style, a kind of taste, a life... So I often came to everyone's blog and leave some sincere greetings....
Posted by: Nike Vandal | October 21, 2010 at 10:41 PM
I work for Americord Registry, a cord blood bank. Please look out for our upcoming Cord Advantage product launch that saves many more stem cells as compared to cord blood banking alone. Also, we have better pricing than most of our competitors. www.cordadvantage.com
Posted by: Americord Registry | September 05, 2011 at 04:57 AM
We are in process of selecting a company. M.A.Z.E. Labs seems to be cheapest one. Please share your experience.
Posted by: Mukesh Kumar | November 08, 2011 at 06:09 PM
Yes, veins can be hard to get into, they can wiggle or move away from a nelede once it is introduced, thus the probing to catch it. You may have a small bruise or tenderness but other wise, your vein will recover quickly. This experience will not hinder you from donating blood in the future. Donating blood is one of the single most important things a person can do to help others. You don't realize it, but you are saving a life every time you donate.
Posted by: Aqeel | May 15, 2012 at 01:36 PM
Cord blood is the blood that's in the umbilical cord (and ptecanla) and contains stem cells (blood stem cells mostly, but it has other types as well).It's unclear if the stem cells in cord blood are as multipotent as embryonic stem cells (i.e. if cord blood stem cells can differentiate into as many distinct cell-types as ESCs), but the major advantage is that with cord-blood-derived stem cells, there's a possibility for autologous transplantation, which eliminates the possibility of transplant rejection and graft-vs-host disease. Another possible advantage is the moral/ethical one that a fertilized embryo isn't destroyed to get them.Another advantage for non-autologous transplantation is that, while blood stem cells are generally easy to collect, other types aren't so cord blood may be a way to increase the number of potential donors so there's a greater probability that a person who needs a stem cell transplant will be able to find an appropriately matched donor.There's little to no harm in banking cord blood (see the links below for information about how it's collected). The biggest reason, as far as I know, that it's not always banked is because of the cost involved (I remember reading somewhere that it cost about $8000 to $10000).There's more information here:
Posted by: George | May 15, 2012 at 03:15 PM
Umbilical cord blood is blood that remains in the pltnacea and in the attached umbilical cord after childbirth. Cord blood is obtained from the umbilical cord at the time of childbirth, after the cord has been detached from the newborn.[1] Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, including hematopoietic cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders.[2] Some pltnaceal blood may be returned to the neonatal circulation if the umbilical cord is not prematurely clamped.[3] In some obstetric and midwifery practices, physiological extended-delayed cord clamping protocol, as well as water birth, allows for the cord blood to pulse into the neonate for 2–20 minutes after delivery.[4] If the umbilical cord is not clamped, a physiological clamping occurs upon interaction with cold air, when the internal gelatinous substance, called Wharton's jelly, swells around the umbilical artery and veins.
Posted by: Eloisa | May 16, 2012 at 12:38 AM
Thanks Becky, we're still hanging in there.Maryann, I was sure he was going to come early, but it looks like he's hoildng out till the end.gee, thanks for the good wishes.Delina, we're now down to 7 days and counting. Stacy, the time has flown by for me too. It seems like just yesterday I was sneaking around to the pharmacy to get a pregnancy test.
Posted by: Monica | May 16, 2012 at 02:17 AM
Stem cell banking and reaserch company Life Cell Chennai is not yet ready to supply stem cells for therapy of all diseases. Initially they plan to treat only blood disorders.The stem cells to treat spinal injures are not available in IndiaOwn bone marrow cells are better and only option today and that too on experimental basis . Umbilical cord stem cells can be potential carriers of genetic disorders if the foetus receiving the umbilical blood is prone to genetic diseases at later life and if the parents of the foetus are victims of any genetic diseases.
Posted by: Lucy | May 16, 2012 at 03:55 AM
Hi Moxie,
I'd like to ask if you are up for a text link ad on your site www.askmoxie.org? If you're open to the idea, I'd love to contact you through email.
Thank you for your time.
Many thanks,
Alexa Jastrzemski
Posted by: Alexa Jastrzemski | September 06, 2012 at 11:10 PM