Private Cord Blood Banking
Just wondering how many expectant moms are considering private cord blood banking?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jese Wiens on -
we considered it, but decided against it. i felt that the benefits to the baby of allowing the cord to stop pulsing before cutting and providing the baby with the blood would outweigh the very small chance of needing the blood in the future for disease treatment.
also, we put the money towards the birthing tub and i think it was money well spent!
there is no right answer here, just think about all the options.
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Stevens on -
The cord blood is collected after the baby is born and the umbilical cord is clamped and cut, it does not affect the baby or the birth experience and does not alter routine practice for the timing of umbilical cord clamping.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages families to donate their newborn’s cord blood, which is normally discarded at birth, to public cord blood banks for use by other individuals in need.
Storing cord blood at private banks for later personal or family use as a general “insurance policy” is discouraged.
According to the revised AAP policy statement, “Cord Blood Banking for Potential Future Transplantation,” the chances of a child needing his or her own cord blood stem cells in the future are estimated at one in 200,000. Also most conditions that might be helped by your newborns cord blood stems cells already exist in the newborns’ cord blood (i.e., premalignant changes in stem cells).
Private cord blood banks target parents at an emotionally vulnerable time when the reality is most conditions that might be helped by cord blood stem cells already exist in the infant’s cord blood
The public donor cord blood banks pay for the collection procedure and storing of the baby's cord blood, so there is no cost to the family for donating the baby's cord blood. However, there are significant fees associated with private storage of cord blood often including both the collection and the storage.
Storing cord blood as "biological insurance" should be discouraged because there currently is no scientific data to support (self) autologous transplantation.
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Permalink Reply by Trish Hoskins on -
I do plan to donate to the public cord blood bank if that's something my hospital participates in, but I will not bank it privately.
After reading about it it seemed like that's where it would do the most good - as Maureen says, banking your child's cord blood isn't all that likely to help him/her for the reasons she described -- any genetic diseases your child may have requiring stem cell treatment, his/her own stem cells would have that same genetic flaw.
And privately banking it for potential use by future children - another reason parents give for private banking - also isn't that effective, as there's not a huge likelihood of a good genetic match.
If everyone donated to the public banks we would all potentially benefit from that larger pool of genetically varied stem cells.
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Stevens on
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If everyone donated to the public banks we would all potentially benefit from that larger pool of genetically varied stem cells.</<br />
You are right on Trish...The odds of finding a suitably-matched, publicly-donated, unrelated cord blood unit are already quite high and are improving steadily as inventories of public cord blood banks grow. Cord blood stem cell transplantation from unrelated donors has been proven successful in the treatment of a variety of diseases, including cancers and genetic illnesses.
We must remember that private cord blood banking is a for profit enterprise. …The web sites for private cord blood banking make you feel like the worst parent in the world if you don't bank your baby’s cord blood. But the idea that saving a baby's cord blood will protect him or her in the future is just false.
The new AAP cord blood banking recommendations call on doctors and others who promote private, for-profit cord blood banking to disclose any financial gains they derive from the procedure to patients. Prospective parentse who are encouraged by their doctor or anyone else to pay for directed cord blood banking should ask about financial conflicts of interest.
As stated previously, a baby's own cord blood (stored at birth), is rarely be suitable for a transplant because the cord blood stem cells and their descendents would be affected by the same conditions, also there is only about a 25% chance that that baby’s cord blood would be a perfect match for a sibling and even less for more distant relatives.
So inventories of unrelated cord blood units in public cord blood banks are a better source of appropriate matches for parents and distant relatives, as well as for siblings that do not match.
Trish Hoskins said:I do plan to donate to the public cord blood bank if that's something my hospital participates in, but I will not bank it privately.
After reading about it it seemed like that's where it would do the most good - as Maureen says, banking your child's cord blood isn't all that likely to help him/her for the reasons she described -- any genetic diseases your child may have requiring stem cell treatment, his/her own stem cells would have that same genetic flaw.
And privately banking it for potential use by future children - another reason parents give for private banking - also isn't that effective, as there's not a huge likelihood of a good genetic match.
If everyone donated to the public banks we would all potentially benefit from that larger pool of genetically varied stem cells.
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Permalink Reply by Terry Carter on
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We did bank our last child's cord blood almost 7 years ago. We had an unassisted home birth, but the cord blood bank was very helpful in sending us the collection kit and directions for collection. We did it because we have 7 children and they all have a less common blood type (B). We felt it was a wonderful opportunity to have this "insurance policy" - especially since we were older parents when he was born. It does cost $50/year for storage.
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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Hodges on
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We are planning on banking our baby's blood this time around. But only because our 7yo was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma 2 1/2 years ago. This is baby #6 for us, and we have never even considered it in the past, but it is a no-brainer for us this time. It helps that, because of her diagnosis, we are eligible for 5 years of banking for free, but even if that weren't the case, we would still do it. The chances of us actually needing it are still small since she is currently in remission, but you never know if you might need it. Never in a million years did we ever think we would have a child diagnosed with cancer. You never know what the future holds.
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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Hodges on
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Maureen said:
"Storing cord blood as "biological insurance" should be discouraged because there currently is no scientific data to support (self) autologous transplantation."
Children with Neuroblastoma benefit MOST from autologous transplantation. So I don't know where you got your research regarding that, but it doesn't apply to all conditions. Because most people don't bank their child's cord blood, they harvest stem cells from the child with Neuroblastoma and then transplant them. it would be a much less traumatic experience for the child if those cord blood stem cells were available and they didn't have to go through harvest AND transplant.
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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Blitz on
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Maureen said,
"The cord blood is collected after the baby is born and the umbilical cord is clamped and cut, it does not affect the baby or the birth experience and does not alter routine practice for the timing of umbilical cord clamping.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages families to donate their newborn’s cord blood, which is normally discarded at birth, to public cord blood banks for use by other individuals in need."
This is incorrect. Donating a baby's cord blood absolutely affects the baby as it deprives the baby of up to 1/3 of his blood. This can result in a host of problems for the newborn and can take up to six months for the baby to make that blood back. To donate the blood, the cord must be clamped immediately following delivery. The only reason donating does not alter routine clamping times is that it is not yet standard practice to wait until the cord stops pulsating. The research in this area is very clear. Too bad it takes the AAP so long to catch on.
Furthermore, if you do decide to donate your baby's cord blood, it is important to know that only 25% or less of donations actually get "banked" for donation. The rest are discarded if not enough blood is collected.
Why not speak up to the physician and specify that you would like your baby to rightfully receive its needed blood, so the cord is not to be clamped early. For further information, check out this great website http://www.theholisticparent.org/Cord_Blood_Donation.html
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Permalink Reply by Angela on -
My cord blood from my daughter's birth was donated. It was not with my second two births (my daughter was hospital birth, my boys were both home births).
Aside from probably never needing the cord blood, the costs to store it indefinitely are astronomical.
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Stevens on
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The research in this area is very clear.
It can take up to one and half to three hours for pulsing at the umbilical base to completely disappear...Could you post that research?
A recent (2009) Cochrane Review …Early versus delayed umbilical cord clamping in preterm infants studied the effects of the timing of umbilical cord clamping in hospitals. In the review of studies on babies born prematurely, delaying cord clamping for just a very short time helped some of the baby's blood from the placenta pass to the baby to help the flow of blood to the baby's lungs. Term infants whose cord clamping occurred later than 60 seconds after birth had a statistically higher risk of neonatal jaundice requiring phototherapy.
There is a lot of wrong information out there on private websites. Having observed public cord banking at numerous births (TMTC) the cord is not cut immediately, but at the couples discretion and the father/SO cuts the cord if desired and after delivery of the placenta the collection takes place in another area....cord blood is collected from the placenta… because umbilical cord blood or cord blood is the blood that stays in the umbilical cord and placenta after the birth of an infant.
Kathryn Blitz said:Maureen said,
"The cord blood is collected after the baby is born and the umbilical cord is clamped and cut, it does not affect the baby or the birth experience and does not alter routine practice for the timing of umbilical cord clamping.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages families to donate their newborn’s cord blood, which is normally discarded at birth, to public cord blood banks for use by other individuals in need."
This is incorrect. Donating a baby's cord blood absolutely affects the baby as it deprives the baby of up to 1/3 of his blood. This can result in a host of problems for the newborn and can take up to six months for the baby to make that blood back. To donate the blood, the cord must be clamped immediately following delivery. The only reason donating does not alter routine clamping times is that it is not yet standard practice to wait until the cord stops pulsating. The research in this area is very clear. Too bad it takes the AAP so long to catch on.
Furthermore, if you do decide to donate your baby's cord blood, it is important to know that only 25% or less of donations actually get "banked" for donation. The rest are discarded if not enough blood is collected.
Why not speak up to the physician and specify that you would like your baby to rightfully receive its needed blood, so the cord is not to be clamped early. For further information, check out this great website http://www.theholisticparent.org/Cord_Blood_Donation.html
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Stevens on
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I am deeply sorry for your experience and am so glad your child is in remission. The AAP does recommend, although not standard of care, directed private cord blood banking should be encouraged when there is knowledge of a full sibling in the family with a medical condition (malignant or genetic) that could potentially benefit from cord blood transplantation.
Kathryn Hodges said:We are planning on banking our baby's blood this time around. But only because our 7yo was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma 2 1/2 years ago. This is baby #6 for us, and we have never even considered it in the past, but it is a no-brainer for us this time. It helps that, because of her diagnosis, we are eligible for 5 years of banking for free, but even if that weren't the case, we would still do it. The chances of us actually needing it are still small since she is currently in remission, but you never know if you might need it. Never in a million years did we ever think we would have a child diagnosed with cancer. You never know what the future holds.
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Permalink Reply by Empowered Mommy on -
The decision to bank private is very personal and for sure no one should be made to feel guilty. But you can't blame private companies for making a profit (they have been the ones puring money into research considering that in the past 8 years there has been no public funding directed at stem cell research. So they did to be able to pay for the research they're doing.
We read up on it alot and asked our primary care doctor and OB-gyn and decided to bank with our pregnancy. Neither doctor had a monetary incentive to recommend any particular company. They mentioned public banking but the risk was that the cells would not be available for our family’s use or that our hospital wouldn't be able to support this.
They recommended Cord Blood Registry or Viacord (both are good). But we decided to go with CBR because I found a discount coupon online for it. I used it when I enrolled online M1998 and got $250 Off the fees.
Total came out to $1,900 (including the one-time registration, specimen shipment and first year storage). To us it was worth it. We don’t spend on fancy vacations, expensive cars or house remodeling.
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