Would You Bank Your Newborn's Cord Blood?

June 5, 2008

Last month, we discussed banking your newborn's cord blood to possibly help that child, or another relative, should they be afflicted by a life-threatening disease. The cost of privately banking the blood is upwards of $600 for the initial banking, which does not including the annual storage fees. So many people seek out public banks where they can donate the blood for the community to use as necessary.

The Today Show took on the subject last week and noted that cord blood is best used in siblings, and even then, there is only a one in four chance that the sibling will be a match.

Given all of this information, would you consider banking your baby's blood?

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16 Comments

bessa 4 years 50 weeks

I would love to have publicly banked, but it's available at surprisingly few hosptials/areas. And I live in a very large city..At the very last moment we decided to privately bank our daughter's cord. Now we're trying to decide if we have to bank our future-son's cord. I'd hate our daughter to develop something and be the only sibling without a potential match later.

bessa 4 years 50 weeks

I would love to have publicly banked, but it's available at surprisingly few hosptials/areas. And I live in a very large city. . At the very last moment we decided to privately bank our daughter's cord. Now we're trying to decide if we have to bank our future-son's cord. I'd hate our daughter to develop something and be the only sibling without a potential match later.

kiwitwist 4 years 50 weeks

Look at it as a cheap form of life insurance.

snowysakurasky 4 years 50 weeks

i wish my doctor had asked me what i wanted and told me to set it up before hand. its too late to decide after you're in labor..

Jesi_Oh 4 years 50 weeks

wow well I'm a way of having kids yet but there's certainly some food for thought here. I'm split between banking publicly and wating for the blood to go in, will have to research more

katedavis 4 years 50 weeks

Mishell- So interesting! I learned in lamaze that they used to wait to cut the cord so the baby could have the blood, which made a lot of sense to me (although we didn't do it with my son). I'm still not sure on why they don't do that. I didn't even think about the fact that waiting to cut the cord and cord banking were mutually exclusive!My doctor told us that the illnesses that are being treated with cord blood are mostly genetic diseases which would be present in the baby's own blood and that the people most likely to benefit would be parents, aunts and uncles, and siblings, but over the next few years they would know a lot more. Since we plan on having more kids I figured I would wait to do it down the line (and save all the money we would have been paying to store it in the meantime). :)

katedavis 4 years 50 weeks

Mishell- So interesting! I learned in lamaze that they used to wait to cut the cord so the baby could have the blood, which made a lot of sense to me (although we didn't do it with my son). I'm still not sure on why they don't do that. I didn't even think about the fact that waiting to cut the cord and cord banking were mutually exclusive! My doctor told us that the illnesses that are being treated with cord blood are mostly genetic diseases which would be present in the baby's own blood and that the people most likely to benefit would be parents, aunts and uncles, and siblings, but over the next few years they would know a lot more. Since we plan on having more kids I figured I would wait to do it down the line (and save all the money we would have been paying to store it in the meantime). :)

Mishell 4 years 50 weeks

We won't cut the cord until the blood has gone into the baby. There will be no extra blood to bank.

rgrl 4 years 50 weeks

I agree with Shosh. But I did not know there were free banks where anyone can use the blood. That is a good idea!

Shosh 4 years 50 weeks

For the cost, it seemed like throwing money out of the window. If I had other children, perhaps I would have banked my daughter's cord blood, but after months of research on it, my husband and I opted out.

bluesarahlou 4 years 50 weeks

Kiki can you keep mine too when the time comes? I don't have a basement.... :rotfl:

Courtney82 4 years 50 weeks

kiki, haha that is pretty funny. honey can you go grab the steak, make sure not to get the cord this time, haha.we have donate ours. i want to try to help as many kids as we can, not just ours so instead of incurring the cost we will donate all of them

Courtney82 4 years 50 weeks

kiki, haha that is pretty funny. honey can you go grab the steak, make sure not to get the cord this time, haha. we have donate ours. i want to try to help as many kids as we can, not just ours so instead of incurring the cost we will donate all of them