Opinions on saving cord blood

[mommyj_2]

I PMed you.
After a lot of research, we did it.

[Momof3Labs]

Congratulations on the all-clear - may he stay that way for a long, long time! DH is now 11 years post-bone marrow transplant and has been in relapse the whole time.

We used CBR but felt that Viacord was equally reputable; we'll probably use Viacord for #2 just to keep our eggs spread across two baskets. Both have transplant histories and are certified tissue banks. There is a big bank that is a cheaper option out there, but at the time they didn't have any transplant history and did not have the tissue bank certification.

[jd11365]

We did it through the New England Cord Blood Bank. 1 fee for 20 years of banking. It was the most bang for the buck. All I had to do was remember to bring the box to the hospital...very easy. DH mailed it from the hospital immediately...actually FedEx came to pick it up right from the hospital. Personally, I just felt that if heaven forbid I needed it and hadn't banked it I would feel so terrible.

Jamie
Mommy to Kayla
5-1-03

[starrynight]

No, I didn't do it for any of my kids. From everything I read it will only help a future sibling or family member not the child it was saved from. I have heard but not sure this is true that if you donate to a cord bank and in the rare chance your child actually needs the cord blood then you can get a sample from the cord bank you donated to but not necessarily the one you donated. But I only saw that once in an article somewhere so not sure on the truth of that since I can't find the article anymore sorry.

[Marisa6826]

We donated ours to the hospital cord bank after discussing it at length with our OB.

The chances of US needing it, versus the possibility of a match for another child (or adult) in dire need was what helped us make the decision to donate it to the "general public".

-m

[sbjf]

I want to but I have not begun researching this yet. Thanks for the reminder! I'm going to read through everyone's posts here to get started!

[Momof3Labs]

Christine, can you explain that a little better? I don't understand what that does, and why it is an alternative to cord blood banking or donation.

Thanks!

[McQ]

We opted to donate the cord blood. Although I was very disappointed that in our case they didn't collect enough to save :(. I delivered in the Inova hospital system and they have a program where if you donate and then ever need the blood, you can get your blood back ~ provided it hasn't been used by someone else. The collection was pretty easy and it can do so much for somebody. I just wanted to be able to give that gift.

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03

[MinnieMouse]

Instead of cutting the cord right upon delivery, you wait until the cord stops pulsing. This allows the blood that is still in the cord to be essentially "drained" into the baby instead of being either thrown out or saved for storage or donation.

Dh and I wanted to wait until the cord stopped pulsing from the beginning...we asked the midwife about storing or donating and she was quick to point out we could do one or the other not both. If you wait for it to all go into the baby, thne there isn't much left to save.

After talking it over with the midwife and looking into storing/donation, dh and I figured that if the blood was important enough to store or donate...and we were not convinced about the $$$ to store it... it must be better to let our child get the "good stuff" instead of throwing it out.

Like I said above, it turned out that Bethany was in distress and they ended up cutting the cord from her neck as she emerged from the birth canal. So all our research and decision making wasn't needed :-).

There is a good amount of information on the net about the benefits of allowing the cord to stop pulsing before cutting it. I of course don't have any of the sites bookmarked anymore since Beth is over 2yo!

Good Luck!

Christine

[gracelynne]

We used the New England Cord Blood Bank, too. DH did a lot of research and decided that this was the way to go. FedEx came to our hospital, too. We're hoping to not need it, but we're worriers by nature and felt like we'd regret it if we didn't bank it.

It was funny -- we thought that this was a really common thing (after all, there were brochures included with all the stuff we got from the hospital during my pregnancy), but my OB said he never heard of anyone banking their cord blood. He seemed to find us quite cutting edge!