Blood Chord Advice?

eleanor_rigby

I am having my first child in February and I want to look into the blood cord thing, but I don't even know where to begin with this.  Any advice?

mrsdanigirl8

I would start with the hospital you are giving birth at first. Some hospitals only allow certain cord blood companies so you have to check with them anyway before shelling out the dough for banking your blood. If you plan on donating than also check with the hospital to see if they deal with any particular company.

CelticWife

As the pp suggested, I would start with your hospital/doctor. They should be able to tell you what companies they work with to bank your cord blood. It is very expensive with yearly fees, but if your family has a history of the diseases they use it for, it would probably be worth it. If you would rather donate it, which I am doing, they can also tell you which companies they will send it to. All the companies usually need you to fill out a health questionnaire, sometime during your 32-35 week of pregnancy, so I wouldn't wait too long. Good luck!

MaryChop

do research - a lot of the basic material out there is misleading.....what we ended up doing is donating it for other sick kids or for research.....good luck!

marrymemylove

We banked our cord blood from DS at a public cord bank which does not engage in research. That means it will be there to help someone who is a match, whether that is us or someone else. Since they take a large amount more than 1 person can be helped and I'm happy to help others. There is no reason to think it won't be there if we need it too, the chances of more than a few matches are small.

?IF you bank it somewhere that uses some for research they can use it up quickly and it won't be there if you need it.

It cost us a fee for collection to the OB but that's all. They came and collected it the morning after the birth. If DS had been born in one of their affiliated hospitals there would have been no collection fee.?

stressdbride2b

i recently looked into this but unfortunately i was too late. I live in Maryland where there are no public chord blood banks. Only private. we decided against private because the only medical conditions known in mine and dh family hx is cancer( which your own chord blood could be predisposed for so wouldn't help) I called a public bank donation place but they said they were too far and only had a window of like an hour after delivery to pick it up since it has to be frozen quickly. So i found a universal donation website but by the time i called I was 35 weeks and the cuttoff for request was 34 weeks for paperwork time. You can google cord blood donation. i'm not sure sure if research is done at the universal site though.
Someone posted about a public bank that doesnt use it for research and that sounds like the way to go if you can find one!

Good luck