Delayed Cord Clamping or Cord Blood Banking

Isthisthereallife · May 2017

Hi ladies!!

A little about me, I'm currently 25 weeks pregnant with our little girl! She was conceived via IVF after 3 failed rounds of IUI.

Now, I'm starting my research on the benefits of Delayed Cord Clamping vs Cord Blood Banking. We could also throw Cord Blood Donation in there if we don't have enough to read about.

I am looking for your ladies thoughts and insight into what is the best route to go. While money is a factor for us, if CBB is the better option, we'd find the money for it. What is your thoughts/experience on this? If you did/are doing CBB, do you have a lab recommendation?

Thank you in advance!!

ZoeFer · May 2017

Hi, congratulations! My doctor said you can do both delayed cord clamping and cord blood banking. He said the data does not show a big benefit for delayed clamp so i chose not to. Actually i ended up having a c-section so i dont know if it was an option anyway. we did collect the cord blood and used CBR. They were easy to work with and they had a financial plan to pay in 12 months.

JWatt5 · May 2017

Hi
I've looked into this quite a bit now (I'm in Canada though so there's a different opinion here). We'll be doing delayed cord clamping (which we'll do with a scheduled C-section as well if it goes that way - if it becomes an emergent C then we just can't) - Our hospital's standard is to wait 2-3 minutes already but I'll be asking for 3-5 minutes or once the cord stops pulsing (pending we dont bank) to ensure as much blood as possible is transferred back to our baby - really helps with oxygen and iron supply. There is a Cochrane study that says delaying cord clamping for as long as three minutes increases increases blood volume by 40%, and therefore red blood cell count and iron storage capacity. My OB (who teaches the Midwifery program) says that ultimately, since they don't "rush" to clamp and cut the cord now that you don't even notice the 3 minutes - it's just part of the process since immediate skin to skin/rub down is the standard now rather than clamp, cut and take away to rub down before giving the baby to mom. Asking for the 5 is just asking the OB to be a bit more aware of the timing but they just don't rush to clamp and cut anymore.
Cord banking/Cord Tissue Banking - Our OB said they can wait 1-2 minutes for some blood transfer but no longer otherwise they won't be able to harvest enough blood. The nice thing is, if you had more than one child, you won't have to do it again as that first child's blood banking "should" supply the family which for me made the cost much more worth it. For us,we are a bit torn, but moving towards not banking. Currently we don't have any illnesses in our families that may give us an indication we should just incase due to high risk but I hope that we never have to feel as if we should have. Cost is a factor for us as well but like you said could be so worth it. It's so tough to decide - for the inital costs and 18 years of banking is about $3000. We also looked at Cord Tissue banking because so far what they think they could use it for we DO have in our family (diabetes, arthritis etc) but the research is still in the early stages and spending $3000 on a hope it will become a routine use and that they uses aren't necessarily life and death it just isn't worth it at this time for us.

Sorry for the novel but I hope it's helpful - like I said, I'm in Canada, so maybe a different perspective from my OB but we're all human right

I found talking with my OB and family doctor really helped us with our decisions - we need a lot of education and filtering for circumcision as well - that was another brain buster for us because of family tradition and new standards. So many new standards out there for everything since we were born - a lot more to think about!

wifeinraleigh28 · May 2017

We looked into CBB and decided against it. There just doesn't seem to be much documentation proving it to be useful (or useable in the future), and the Mayo Clinic says it is mostly fear marketing right now.

As for delayed cord clamping, it's such a new practice that there isn't much research yet to prove there is much benefit, if any. We haven't officially made our decision on this yet but we're leaning towards not doing it.

kelrauh · May 2017

My Ob automatically did delayed cord clamping.
We opted for Cord blood banking. We lost my mother in law 2 years ago to cancer and it could have been cured with a bone marrow transplant, so we chose to do it due to that. We went with Via Cord and they were really good and gave us a great discount for twins. We only ended up paying like $300 more for the second baby.

2legbaby · May 2017

We considered Cord Blood banking however the main thing I was worried about was some form of leukemia / cancer and in this case they will not use the cord blood from that baby ( because those are also predisposed to making cancer). It may be a great safety net for a sibling (which we knew we would not have for her -at least not genetically related). A lot of the other claims they make for diseases such as autism and things like that have pretty weak evidence that it actually works.
We wanted to do delayed cord clamping but due to the circumstances of her birth it was in her best interest to cut the cord right away so she could be evaluated.

peregrinefalconx · May 2017

I did delayed clamping, which is a standard procedure with my midwives. I think the info on it shows that it is helpful and it seems more natural to me personally. It, however, did seem like an extremely long time that she was laying on my belly. I kept trying to hold her and they had to tell me again that the cord wasn't long enough. Funny how right after the birth is a blur.

I did not do any banking. It seemed like a long shot insurance policy and I didn't feel that was necessary.

hopeby2015 · May 2017

With dd, we opted not to do either. Like others have said, you cant use it on the same baby for things like cancer, etc. And since she was de, we had no idea if future siblings would benefit from it. Its such a long shot on so many fronts, that we decided it wasnt necessary. As for the delayed clamping, again the research seemed slim for any benefits. So we mentioned that it would be nice to do but i dont think it actually happened.

byrneme · May 2017

We were going back and forth on doing both and then, like my email KNEW we were talking about it, I got this article and we decided against banking. We still plan on delayed cord clamping.

https://www.lucieslist.com/newsletter/week-28-truth-cord-blood-banking/

PNW12RN · May 2017

We banked cord blood for our daughter, who was born last week via scheduled C section. With my BRCA mutation, the cancer risk in my family is higher than for most people, so the odds are greater that this could actually be of help to someone. Still not very likely, but worth the $$ for us. We paid $1350 through ViaCord for banking plus the first year of storage, and will pay I think $175 every year in May for ongoing storage.

I will say, they had issues with getting my cord blood. The blood wasn't flowing out well for them to collect it, so they were milking the cord to get it out. While doing this, my placenta separated from the uterus wall and I had some bleeding issues and lost almost a liter of blood. Plus, in the chaos, one of the MDs got a needle stick and had to scrub out to attend to that, so it was even MORE chaotic getting this sorted out. Everything ended up fine, but just FYI there can be a bit of a risk in doing all of this, since they are leaving the placenta in place while getting the cord blood and when the uterus starts contracting down you can have bleeding.

Isthisthereallife · May 2017

Thank you so much ladies for your insight. I also asked a moms group on FB and so many people seem to be leaning towards Delayed Cord Clamping.

ale9687 · May 2017

My plan was delayed cord clamping with ds, when I was in labour and I mentioned it to the nurse she said it was now standard practice. Unfortunately we didn't get to do it bc ds needed to be seen by the nicu nurse immediately

Delayed Cord Clamping or Cord Blood Banking

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