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Cord Blood/Tissue Banking?
I was wondering if any of you did cord blood banking? If so, what company did you use? We are looking at ViaCord as it seems they are the main/biggest player in the industry, but wanted to see what other companies provide this same service and experiences with ViaCord and others. Also, I noticed that ViaCord offers banking of cord blood and tissue for an extra cost beyond cord blood banking. Do you think it is worth it to bank both items? Thanks in advance.
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Re: Cord Blood/Tissue Banking?
We decided against cord blood banking after doing more research about it. The brochures from places like ViaCord make it sound really appealing, but after doing the research I had no question that it wasn't something we would do. A girl on the April '12 moms board works with cord blood and wrote this post, which I found really helpful.
We would like to donate the cord blood but our hospital does not participate in the program (lame!) so we've just chosen to delay cord clamping so our baby can get it.
we banked for both babies. we used CBR. if you could donate anywhere in austin, i may have considered not donating, but we decided to do it. i did not do the extra tissue donating (whatever the 2nd part was), because it wasn't available with #1 and we couldn't afford it for #2.
i'm one of those people that loves to be insured for everything, so i had to do it!
i had looked into donating the cord blood, but our local blood bank was no longer accepting cord blood donations this year. you can ask them if they are taking donations for when your LO is born, if that's a route you're considering. https://www.bloodntissue.org/texascordbloodbank.asp
here's another place to look at for donating. https://www.lifeforcecryobanks.com/enroll/donating/
We did with ViaCord for both DDs (just cord blood). ditto pp on the extra insurance.
I have a few thoughts on the linked post, for what little they're worth. I'm no doctor, but I do have questions about what that poster said.
#1 - edited for clarity. I read her (not pp, linked "expert") post as essentially saying unrelated donor blood is more likely to be a match than cord blood from your child. I'm not in statistics, but I'm not convinced. Apparently, cord blood has to be less of an exact match than unrelated donor blood. So, the odds of cord blood matching/not being rejected would be higher, right? link I do completely understand the aspect of volume from a live donor being greater. The match/rejection odds, I plan to research a little more. If there's a small chance your child's cord blood will match, isn't there an even smaller chance that an unrelated donor would match up (because more antigens must match)?
#2 - Have you read My Sister's Keeper? I would do everything I possibly can to avoid using child 2 as a donor for child 1. (poster describes using a six month old as a donor.)
It's absolutely your decision and none of my business either way. But, I did have these two thoughts when I read the "expert"'s post. (No dig at pp at all. I question the other poster's statements.) So, FWIW we did.
my simple answer to the pp's link is this: i'm banking on the future. let's just say the cord blood is worthless now (i don't believe it is). they are constantly doing research and making advancements to what they can do with cordblood. there is just no denying that. do the companies prey on parents' fears? yep, i'm sure they do. but don't lots of companies prey on our fears? insurance, cars with the best airbags, flood insurance, extended warranties, oh i'm sure we could all think of a bunch...
I'm with ya.
ditto exactly
No offense taken at all! My eyes were just opened by that post and it prompted me to start doing more research about it. It's completely a personal choice, like every other parenting decision, and like with most I see both "sides" of the issue.
this, too.
unfortunately, we have 2 family members and 2 friends that have sick children. one would have benefited from cord blood banking for sure.
I didn?t bank my sons? cord blood but in hindsight I wish I would have. I consider not banking their cord blood to be one of the greatest regrets of my life. If I had banked, I would have worked with CBR. They are a very established company, and I read that they have more than 350,000 samples stored and they have released many samples that have been successfully used as treatments! That would give me great peace of mind.