Over the New Years holiday, I went to visit my parents. My mom was telling me she will be willing to pay to have my babies cord blood saved.
Since coming home (yesterday) I have been looking up information about banking cord blood. I would like to here from moms who have banked cord blood and their experience. Maybe some suggestions on what company to look into (or not get involved with).
TIA
Re: Banking cord blood
Most diseases that can be helped by stem cells in the cord blood are genetic, so the child's own cord blood, with the same diseased DNA in the cells, is not useful. It can be useful for siblings or cousins, but even that is rare. Like PP mentioned, donating to a public bank can benefit other children. But paying to privately bank your own blood is almost certainly useless. And crazy expensive.
Current research shows that almost all babies are better served by delayed cord clamping, which leaves all of the blood including the nutrients and stem cells and oxygen in the baby at birth. That way your child definitely gets benefits from it now, and you don't spend thousands of dollars on the off-off-off chance s/he MIGHT benefit from it down the road.
My husband and I get really excited about geeky science stuff, and we have decided to bank the cord blood for our twins. A lot of the research is fairly new, and there are still tons of studies going on. We didn't choose to bank based on what is known today, but we expect them to find many more uses in the future. It could (and very likely will) end up being a waste of money, but I'd rather have it and not need it than the other way around!
We went with CBR, based on a referral from one of my co-workers. I just set everything up last week, so all I can really say at this point is that the customer service seems good. Good luck!
Thank You all ladies!!! I have spent some time this afternoon looking up some information and even forwarded some information to my mom. After reading some of your comments, I do agree about it being a waste of money that could be better used somewhere else. I will be seeing my parents again here in a couple of weeks and I think we should have an in depth discussion about banking the cord blood.
I have also been thinking my mom may be feeling she has to be fair to me for the money she has spent on my brother, paying for his health insurance so he could get surgery to save his eye sight. It doesn't need to be fair, we each have different needs.
I have seen some posters mention leaving the cord attached (not sure what the term is), it seems this could be more beneficial at the time. At this point, I am leaning towards not private banking the cord blood.
We initially thought about banking it ourselves, but the odds of being able to use it yourself is pretty low. I like that we were able to help someone instead of throwing it away.
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to be over, it's about learning how to dance in the rain." -Unknown
Married 3-1-08 | Nathan 11-24-08 | Kaelyn 11-30-10 | Alicia 8-17-13
We banked ours with CBR for both girls and will for this LO as well. The start up fees are pretty expensive, but we felt it was the right thing to do for us. My family history is not the healthiest.
My friend's little boy had leukemia and they were able to use cord blood (donated) to help him. You may want to consider donating if you don't want to store it.
C 7.16.2008 | L 11.12.2010 | A 3.18.2013
This exactly for us. After talking to my doc, my OB, our MFM, doing research it just came out that it's a crock of malarky. In theory there are lots of things they claim can be done but in reality even if some of the things they claim come to pass they may not be able to even use the blood because it would carry the same genetic code. We chose not to save either of ours and won't this time either.
ETA: I would have happily donated the cord blood as I donated our extra fertilized eggs from IVF (to science) but our hospital isn't set up for it apparently.