Banking Cord Blood?

[ginabini]

Hi Ladies! I was wondering if anyone has any strong opinions one way or another about banking your baby, or babies', cord blood? I see so many advertisements for it everywhere (thanks target marketing!) and it makes so much sense in theory... but its just so darn expensive. Some of the studies I read seemed to indicate that if (God forbid) your baby ever needed a stem cell transplant, they would have more luck being able to use donor cells than their own? I guess what they were saying is that a lot of the diseases stem cell transplants can treat result from mutant cells to begin with, so you would just be implanting the same mutant cells that your baby had originally developed. So the research I've done so far seems to point in the direction of donating rather than paying to bank privately. They're obviously doing more testing every day, but just trying to figure out of the potential benefits are worth the high cost.

Any input and/or opinions are totally appreciated!!

[harlowjune1984]

We didn't do it with DD, but I remember stressing about it when I was pregnant with her because of all of the information I was reading. The hospital where I delivered wouldn't let us donate it (which is what we had decided to do), so it just became medical waste. This time, we will not be banking either, because I am having a gentle cesarean (so they will delay cord clamping - which means there is not enough blood to bank). I have friends that banked with their first, but didn't feel it was worth it and didn't for their second.

[jenn83]

I have a little insight into the issue since my son actually had a stem cell transplant during treatment. His transplant consisted of his own stem cells collected carefully during treatment. We are strongly considering banking baby girl's cord blood. I know if we would have had a baby during our son's treatment, it would have been free due to his cancer; however, I am not sure that is still the case since he is no longer living More research for me.

Stem cells are life savers in every sense to me. Because of what I have been through, I know my perceptions are different now. We did not bank our son's cord blood when he was born so I completely understand the other side of things as well.

[littlesthobo]

We looked into it with DS, here it would cost money to have it banked privately but free to donate it to the public bank (where we would still have access if we needed it, but others could use it as well). We were leaning towards public and then DS came early and we missed filling out all the paperwork. I'm thinking about donating this time around.

[lostinfaith225]

I wanted to with ds, but our hospital doesn't do it.

[trex]

My opinion is that it is a very expensive insurance policy for something you have a low likelihood of using. like you said, if your child was sick they likely wouldn't use the stem cells from his/her birth. The L&D unit I work on and will deliver at does a donation program so we plan to do that.

[ellebelle]

We didn't do it with DD and won't do it this time either. We're paying embryo cryopreservation fees for our frosties and honestly can't afford to pay cord blood banking fees on top of that.

[allison7]

I had wanted to donate with DD, but got behind and never did the paperwork. I have already talked with my OB about it this time and I will donate. My hospital provides a lot of literature about how building a strong donor bank is important for our community and heaven forbid we should ever need such a thing I think it would be important to have that donor bank as a thriving resource.