Cord Blood - did you bank it?

leslies75

DH just heard about banking cord blood from a co-worker today and he got all anxious about it. I was just wondering whether or not you did (or plan to) hold on to your baby's cord blood. Also what was (or is) your reasoning for doing or not doing it?

TIA!

epphd

Oh oh oh!!  ME ME ME!!!  I work with a scientist who is doing amazing work with cord blood transplants and JUST got the scoop on them.

OK, here is the deal with private cord blood banking: you pay for a company to come in and take the blood and put it in a freezer.  They do not count the cells or type the tissue.  They store it.  For hundreds to thousands of dollars a year.

If your child gets sick, the cord blood is of no use to them - you can't treat a patient with leukemia with his or her own cells- they need a NEW immune system (that they get from a transplant.)

If your second child or family member gets sick, the banked cord blood may or may not be a match.  There may or may not be enough cells to do a donation.

If your child or family member gets sick and needs a transplant, there is a good chance they will find a bone marrow donor in a family member.  About 1/3 of bone marrow recipients find a bone marrow match in the family. If there is no match in the family, an additional 40% of patients find a match in the public registery of bone marrow donors.  If there is no match there, 99% of the remaining 30% can find a match in the PUBLIC cord blood registry. The reason for this is that cord blood matches are much less stringent than bone marrow matches, even though the end result (a fresh immune system) is the same.

In fact, your chances of finding a match in the public registry are better than finding a match in your privately banked cord blood, plus all banked samples are tissue typed and have sufficient cell counts for transplant.

Granted, IF your family member gets sick and IF the privately banked cord blood is a sufficient match and IF it is of high enough cell count, it's a great thing.  But the odds of that being the case are very small.  Meanwhile, Viacord is making money hand over fist on the fear of parents.

We will donate our cord blood to a public registry if the cell counts are high enough. If not, we will donate it to the researcher where I work to continue her work on cord blood transplants.

HTH!

Here is another link explaining it all: https://www.babycenter.com/0_private-cord-blood-banking-is-it-for-you_1369773.bc

 

 

leslies75

Elizabeth, you're amazing! I can't wait to share this info with my husband!

(The other thing that I can't help but acknowledge it that my baby is a donor sperm miracle, and that adds a whole additional twist to "family member" viability).

RobinLA

We did store our cord blood with CBR and they did count the cells - DD has over 100billion which is much higher than the norm.  We did it just as a precaution.  We weighed the pros and cons, the pp concerns included but in the end we thought, we have the money, it can't hurt so we did it.

kristinamh6

Thank you for posting this, and thank you Elizabeth for your opinion. I was really torn because we honestly cannot afford to bank our cord blood, but I really felt like I should. Cancer and Leukemia really run in my family, and I was under the impression that banking my baby's cord blood could be a great thing should we need it. I feel so much better about not doing it now. So thank you Elizabeth! I looked into donating mine as well, but according to my research the state of Nevada does not participate.

epphd

Kristin - that's a big problem right now - not all states or hospitals participate due to the up front cost of collection and difficulty finding space for long term storage.  We are very lucky to live in a state that has several facilities set up for it.

I should have said that there is nothing wrong with using private storage - I just wish that there was more info about public banking available, because private banks do prey on fears more than is fair, I think. Again, if you do need that banked blood and it is a match, I would imagine no money in the world would be too much to spend.

 

marcuej

We are donating our cord blood through our local blood bank.  I was already approved and have filled out all the necessary paperwork and was interviewed with a million questions.  I feel so great about our decision and the bonus is we're saving oodles of money by donating instead of banking.

Temp848906437505510

leslies75:

Elizabeth, you're amazing! I can't wait to share this info with my husband!

(The other thing that I can't help but acknowledge it that my baby is a donor sperm miracle, and that adds a whole additional twist to "family member" viability).

This is one of the main reasons we are going to do it - because our baby is a donor egg baby and has already lost the potential pool of half of her genetic family.

epphd

LBR_NJ:

leslies75:

Elizabeth, you're amazing! I can't wait to share this info with my husband!

(The other thing that I can't help but acknowledge it that my baby is a donor sperm miracle, and that adds a whole additional twist to "family member" viability).

This is one of the main reasons we are going to do it - because our baby is a donor egg baby and has already lost the potential pool of half of her genetic family.

But Lisa, are you doing it for her?  Because (god forbid) if she gets ill, her own cord blood won't be of any use.  Again, I have no problem with the choice to do it, but I don't feel like private banks do a good job of explaining the limitations of banking for private use.

Temp848906437505510

No, but, if we have her sibling from the one frozen embryo we have, the odds would be better if that boy or girl ever needed it.

alison43

we were going to donate it to the public bank in NJ.  they were really helpful and sent me so much stuff... i did all the paperwork and then DD came before we finished the screening and got the kit.

they called a few weeks after she was born to go over something and it was obviously a non-issue then, LOL.

epphd

LBR_NJ:

No, but, if we have her sibling from the one frozen embryo we have, the odds would be better if that boy or girl ever needed it.

Got it - I forgot that you had a frostie - lucky!!