Baby Cord Blood Bank
Parents who are expecting a baby have a lot of decisions prior to the birth. They have to decide on everything from the name of the baby to whether they’re going to breast-feed or bottlefeed to their pediatrician will be. There’s a lot of things to decide as the birth date approaches. One of the things that a lot of parents do not realize is available, is the ability to bank baby cord blood. Yes you heard me right, umbilical cord blood.
Why is umbilical cord blood important? The thing is that there is only one chance in a person’s life to harvest their cord blood and that is when they are born. The cord is generally discarded at birth anyway, but it is rich in blood stem cells.
Most of the time it has not been the issue storing the cord blood itself, but the problems arise from the for-profit entities pushing this as a necessary th students ing to have when there are public cord blood banks available. The storing of blood as a yearly cost from these entities and the fees can be rather high and the upfront storage costs ranging from $600-$1800 and somewhere around a yearly $100 recurring fee.
Many people like the fact that a child’s own blood instead of someone else’s will be used in them in medical necessity. Medically the stem cells in the cords are used to treat a number of pediatric disorders like sickle cell anemia, leukemia (although in genetic cases own cord blood can’t be used), and other rare metabolic disorders. It is also used for bone marrow transplants. Currently if you did not still store the cord from an individual, one can be used from a sibling or even an unrelated person that is a match. You can even choose to donate your child’s cord blood to a public blood bank.
Most parents think of it as like insurance just in case something happens and will pay a yearly fee that it takes to store the cord blood. Parents do need to know that there are programs available that will store cords for free, especially in cases where there is a pressing need prior to birth. One such program is the Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program in Oakland, California.
One of the major problems with for-profit organizations promoting storage of this kind is the fact that there is no proven statistical need for it at all and most children. Also another thing is that just because a child’s own blood wasn’t stored from their own cord, does that mean that treatments will be withheld from them. Other baby’s cord blood are banked all the time and are available.
In the end, the choice of whether or not to use a private cord blood banking storage option is up to you, the parent. If you feel a sense of security in doing so for your baby, then by all means, choose the private cord blood banking storage option, but don’t say we didn’t warn that it might not be necessary.
